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PRESENTED 


BY 






RELIQUES 



OF 



ROBERT BURNS; ^'^^i 

CONSISTING CHIEFLY OF 

ORIGINAL 
LETTERS, POEMS, AND CRITICAL OBSERVATIONS 

SQOTTISH SONGS. _ 



COLLECTED AND PUBLISHED BT 

R. H. CROMEK. 



Ordain'd to fire th' adoring Sons of Earth 
With every chariti of wisdom and of worth, 
Or, warm with Fancy's energ-y to glow. 
And rival all but Shakspeare's name below, 

Pleasvres of Hop ^ 



PUBLISHED BY 

liHADFORD AND INSKEEP, PHILADELPHIA ; INSKEE<> 

AND BRADFORD, NEW YORK; COALE AND 

THOMAS, BALTIMORE ; AND OLIVER 

C. GREENLEAF, BOSTON 

1809. 



^g'oa 



PREFACE. 



ON an occasion of such delicacy as the present- 
ing to the world another volume of the writmgs of 
Robert Burns, it becomes the Editor to account for 
his motives in undertaking the publication, and to ex- 
plain his reasons for giving it in the form in which it 
now appears. 

Whatever unhappiness the Poet was in his lifetime 
doomed to experience, few persons have l^ecn so for- 
tunate in a biographer as Burns. A strong feeling of 
his excellencies, a perfect discrimination of his charac- 
ter, and a just allowance for his errors, are the distin- 
guishing features in the work of Dr. Currie, who 

« — With kind concern and skill has weav'd 
A silken web ; and ne'er shall fade 
Its colours ; gently has he laid 
The mantle o'er his sad distress. 
And GExius shall the texture bless/' 

The same judgment and discretion which dictated 
the memoirs of the poet, presided also in the selection 
of his writings in the edition by Dr. Currie ; of which 
it may justly be said, that whilst no production of Burns 
could be withdrawn from it without diminishing its 
value, nothing is there inserted which can render his 
w^orks unworthy of the approbation of manly taste, or 
inconsistent with the delicacy of female virtue. 

But although no reduction can be made from the 
published works of the poet, it w ill, it is hoped, appear 
from the following pages, that much may be added to 
them, not unworthy of his genius and character. Of 



IV PREFACE. 

these pieces many had from various causes never oc« 
curred to the notice of Dr. Currie ; whilst others have 
been giv^en by him in a more imperfect state than that 
in which they will now appear. — These productions of 
the Scottish Bard extend from his earliest to Vis latest 
years^; and may be considered as the wild-flowers of 
his muse, which, in the luxuriant vigour of his fancy^ 
he scattered as he passed along. They are the result 
of a most diligent search, in which I have used the ut- 
most exertions; often walking to considerable dis- 
tances, and to obscure cottages in search of a single 
letter. Many of them have been obtained from the 
generous confidence and liberality of their possessors; 
some from the hands of careless indifference, insensi- 
ble to their value ; others were fast falling to decay, 
their very existence almost forgotten, though glowing 
with the vital warmth which is diffused through every 
line that the hand of the immortal bard has ever traced. 
— In this pursuit I have followed the steps of the poet, 
from the humble Cottage in Ayrshire in which he was 
born, to the House in which he died at Dumfries. — I 
have visited the farm of Mossgiel where he resided at 
the period of his first publication ; I have traversed the 
scenes by the Ayr, the Lugar, and the Doon. Sacred 
haunts ! 

" Where first grim nature's visage hoar 
Struck his young eye ;" 

— And have finally shared in the reverential feelings 
of his distinguished biographer,* over the hallowed 
vspot where the ashes of the bard are deposited.! 



* The above passage has a reference to a letter from Dr. Cur- 
rie to Messrs. Cadell and Davies, which has been communi- 
cated to the Editor, and of which the following is an extract- 

June 13, 1804. 

" On my late excursion I visited Mrs. Burns at Dumfries, 
" She continues to live in the house in which the poet died, 
*'and every thing about her bespoke decent competence, and 



tkEFACt. V 

it must not however be supposed thnt the present 
volume cotULiias the whole, or nearly he whole of 
the writings of Burns, which have come under my 
eye, or fallen into my hmds ; much less have I thoUj^ht 
it justifiai:;'-e to reprint those cxcepdonabie pieces, in 
prose and verse, which have been surreptitiously pub- 
lished, or erroneously attributed to him, and which 
in every point of view ought to have been consigned 
to oblivion. Notwithstanding the vigour which cha- 
racterises all his productions, perhaps there is no au- 
thor whose writings are so difficult to select with a 
view to publication as Burns; and the very strength 
and exuberance by which they are marked, are in no 
small degree the cause of this difficulty. Whatever 
was the object, or the idea, of the moment, he has 
delineated, or expressed it, with a force and a vivacity 
that brings it before us in all its beauty, or all its defor- 
mity. But the subjects of his pen were almost as vari- 



'* even comfort. She shewed me the study and small library 
" of her husband nearly as he left them. By every thing* I hear 
" she conducts herself irreproachably. 

"From Mrs. Burns's house my Son and I went to the 
" Church-yard at no great distance, to visit the grave of the 
'' poet. As it is still uninscribed, we could not have found it, 
" had not a person we met with in the Chuixh-yard pointed 
** it out. He told us he knew Burns well, and that he (Burns) 
" himself chose the spot in wliich he is buried. — His grave is 
" on the north-east corner of the Church-yard, which it fills 
" up ; and at the side of the grave of his two sons, Wallace 
*'.and Maxwell, the first of whom, a lad of great promise, died 
"last year of a consumption, the last immediately after his 
" father. The spot is well situated for a monument, for which 
" there is money collected, but the subscribers, I understand, 
" cannot agree as to the design." 

t On this little pilgrimage I was accompanied by Mr. James 
M'Chire, a man who by his punctuality, his integrity, his be- 
nevolence, and the uniform uprightness of his character, con- 
fers respectability on the humble situation of a letter-carrier 
He was the constant and faithful friend of the poet, and 
since his death has been most active and successful in his en- 
deavours to promote the interests of tlie family. 



VI PREFACE. 

ous as nature herself; and hence it follows, that some 
of his^ compositions must be discarded, as inconsist- 
ent with that decorum which is due to the public 
at large. In his early years. Burns had imbibed a 
strong attachment to the unfortunate House of Stuart 
which he seems to have cherished as a patriotic feel- 
ing ; and as whatever he felt, he felt strongly, his pre- 
judices occasionally burst forth in his writings ; and 
some compositions of his yet remain, the publication 
of which, although in these days perfectly harmless, 
might render the Editor obnoxious to the letter, 
though not to the spirit of the law. If the aftections of 
Burns were ardent, his animosities were scarcely less 
so; and hence some of his pieces display a spirit of 
resentment, the result of the moment, which it would 
be unjust to his memory, as well as to the objects of 
his satire, to revive. I'hese and various other causes, 
on which it would be tedious to dwell, have imposed 
difficulties upon me from which I have endeavoured 
to extricate myself according to the best of my judg- 
ment. If on the one hand, with the example of the 
former Editor before my eyes, I have rejected whate- 
ver I conceived might in any point of view be impro- 
per for the public eye, I have on the other hand, been 
anxious not to deprive the author, through too fastidi- 
ous an apprehension of indecorum, of those peculiar 
marks, and that masculine freedom of thought and 
expression, which so strongly characterise his works. 
Nor have I in this respect trusted wholly to my own 
judgment and feelings. Several persons, some of them 
most nearly connected by the ties of relationship with 
the poet, others distinguished by their literary attain- 
inents, and their well known admiration of his works, 
have also been consulted. But though I have availed 
myself of this assistance to the utmost of my power, 
and " though I love the man, and do honor his memo- 
" ry on this side idolatry as much as any,'' yet as on 
many occasions I must exercise my own judgment 
and discretion, I know not whether the warmth of 
my attachment to the poet and his productions, may 



PREFACE. VU 

not have led me to publish sentiments and pieces 
which would have been better wUhheid, and even let- 
ters and poems, to which an ardent admiration of their 
author may have induced me to attach a fancied va- 
lue and interest. I can liowever assure the reader, that 
whatever may be thought of the following collection, 
I have neither forgotten, nor been indifferent to the 
apprehensions so strongly expressed by Burns, in near- 
ly his last moments; ''that every scrap of his writing 
"would be revived against him to the injury of his 
"future reputation; that letters and papers written 
" with unguarded and improper freedom, and which 
" he earnestly wished to have buried in oblivion, would 
" be handed about by idle vanity or malevolence, when 
"no dread of his resentment would restrain them, or 
" prevent the censures of shrill-tongued malice, or the 
" insidious sarcasms of envy, from pouring forth all 
" their venom to blast his fame."* On the contrary, I 
must be allowed to say, that if I am at all accurate in 
my estimate of the character and feelings of this ex- 
traordinary but eccentric genius, I have printed no 
one piece of his composition that he would have been 
ashamed to acknowledge, and that in this publication, 
1 have been actuated only by an earnest desire of pre- 
servini>; such of the writings of Burns, and such only, 
as do honour to the poet's head, or to his heart; or that 
are immediately or remotely connected with the cir- 
cumstances of his life, or the developement of his cha- 
racter. 

To one whose admiration of the bard was less ar- 
dent than mine, it might have occurred that some of 
his pieces, containing passages of great beauty, were 
rendered inadmissible merely by a single indelicate 
sentiment, ox vmguarded expression, which it might 
be easy to alter, so as to preserve the whole. But from 
such a presumption as the substituting a word of my 
own in the place of that of the poet, (except in a very 

* Burns's works— jDr. Curvie's Ed,y.\, p. 222. 



Vlll PREFACE- 

few instances of evident error) ] l^ave inost rehgicusly 
abstained ; and have in such cases rathe ^^ chosen to o;-iit 
the passage, or even to sacrifice the piece aitogetlier, 
than i..ttempt to remove its blemishes. If inceed 1 could 
ever have entertained any doubts as to the sacred duty 
of fidelity to my author, the warning voice which yet 
seems to issue from the warm ashes of the poet him- 
self, would effectually have deterred me. '' To mangle 
" the works of the poor bard, whose tuneful voice is 
<' now mute for ever in the dark and narrow house— 
^^ by Heaven, 'twould be sacrilege !"* 

My readers will however best judge how far my 
exertions are intitled to their approbation. As an apo- 
logy for any defects of my own that may appear in this 
publication, 1 beg to observe that I am by profession 
an artist, ahd not an author. An earnest wish to pos- 
sess a scrap of the hand-writing of Burns, originally 
led to the discovery of most of the papers that com- 
pose this volume. In the manner of laying them be- 
fore the public 1 honestly declare that 1 have done my 
best; and I trust 1 may fairly presume to hope that 
the man who has contributed to extend the bounds of 
literature by adding another genuine volume to the 
"writings of Robert Burns, has some claim on the gra- 
titude of his countrymen. On this occasion, I certainly 
feel something of that sublime and heart-swelling 
gratification, which he experiences, who casts another 
stone on the Cairn of a great and lamented chief. 

R. H. C, 

J^envman Street^ 
\st JVov, 1808. 



^ Burns's Works, vol. iv, p. 63 



CONTENTS. 



LETTERS. 



I. To Mr. John Fdchmond^ Edinburgh. 
Mossgicl^ Feb. 17, 1786. Giving' an 
account of some of his compositions I 

11. To Mr. M' TV ie, IVriter^ Ayr. 

Mossgidl, \7thJpril.) 1786, with four 
copies of his poems — Anxiety of a 
poet militant 5 

III. To Mans. James Smith, Mauchline. 
Monday mornings Mo.ssgiel^ 1786. — 
Voyage to the West Indies delayed. — 
Woman 1 --.- 4 

IV. To Mr. David Brice . Mo ssgiel, June 
12, 1786. Approaching departure for 
Jamaica — About to commence poet 
in print, and then to turn a wise man 

as fast as possible c 

V. To Gavin Hamilton., Esq. Mauchline. 
Edinburgh^ Dec. 7 ^ 1786. Rising fame 
— his birth -day to be inserted in the 
almanacks — Patronage — Lord Gien- 
cairn — =The Caledonian Hunt - - i 

VI. To Dr. M^Kenzic, Mauchline. Wed- 
nesday morning. Inclosing him the ex- 
tempore verses on dining with Lord 
Daer — Character of Professor Dugald 
Stewart -- 

VIL To John Ballantine^ Esq. Bariker^ 
Ayr. Edinburgh^ 13/// Dec. 1786. A 
host of Patrons and Patronesses • - ^ 

I) * 



CONTENTS. 

JN'o. Page 
VIII. To Mr, William Chalmers^ Writer^ 
jlyr, Edinburgh^ Dec. 27, 1786. A hu- 
morous sally 9 

IX. To John Ballantine^fEsq. Edinburgh^ 

Jan. 14, 1787. Mr. Miller's offer of a 

farm at Dalswinton — Honors done 

him at a mason-lodge - - - - 11 

X. To the same. With a copy of" The 

banks o' bonie Doon." - - - - 12 
XI. To the same. Edinburgh^ Feb. 24, 
1787. Poems on the eve of publica- 
tion — his phiz to be prefixed to them 14 
XI L To Mr. James Candlish^ Student in 



Physic^ College^ Glasgow. Edinburgh 



March 21, 1787. Return from Scep- 
ticism to Religion — still '' the old man 
with his deeds." 15 

XIII. To the same. Engages to assist 
Johnson in the Scots Musical Mu- 
seum 16 

XIV. To William Creech, Esq. (of Edin- 
burgh) London J Selkirk, \3th May, 
1787. Hi: our in Scotland. — " Wil- 
lie 's awa. ' 17 

XV. To Mr. W. Mcol, Master of the 
High school, Edinburgh. Car lisle, June 
1, 1787. A journey on his mare Jenny 
Geddes — Humorous and in the Scot- 
tish dialect 20 

XVI. To the same. Mauchline, June 18, 
1787. Milton's Satan his favourite — 
Misfortune of the poetic character- 
Estimate of his friends and acquain- 
tance 22 

,XVII. To Gavin Hamilton, Esq. Stirling, 
2^thAug, 1787. Account of his ram- 
bles — A visit to Mr. H 's rela- 
tions. - --------- 24 

XVIIL Fragments. 



CONTENTS. X; 

m- Page. 

To Miss Margaret Chalmers^ {no%D 
Mrs, Hay of Edinburgh) Hept. 26, 
1787. Fireside of Wisdom and Pru- 
dence — Admiration of the fair sex 
about a farm at Dumfries — compli- 
ment to Charlotte — <' The banks of 
the Devon." 28 

Edinburgh^ Kov. 21, 1787. Hints 
to her and Charlotte about letter- 
writing — Affection — ^'The Wabster's 
g-race." 29 

Edinburgh^ Dec, 12, 1787. A bruis- 
ed limb - and blue devils. Taken up 
with the bible 30 

Edinburgh, Dec, 19, 1787. On the 
stilts, not. poetic but oaken. — His mot- 
motto, I DARE. His enemy moimeme ibid. 

Edinburgh,, March 15, 1787. Bar- 
gain for the Ellisland farm completed 
— Settling to business — ^Dr. John- 
son's observation — Firmness - - 31 

Mauchline, IthAliriUM^^. Thanks 
for their introduction to Miss Kennedy 82 

Hairbreadth love-escapes— Fore- 
bodings 33 

Edinburgh,, Sunday, Entered into 
the Excise — satisfied with himself, ibid. 

XIX. To Miss M' 72, Saturday 7ioonj 

St. Ja?nes^s Square, JK'ewtown, EdiJi- 
biirgh. Compliments a Greenland ex- 
pression - - -- 34 

XX. To Mr. Robert ylinslie, FAinburgh, 
Edinburgh, Sunday morning, JVov, 23, 
\7%7 , Declines a supper-engagenftent 

— Warm friendship 35 

XXI. To Miss Chalmers. Edinburgh, Dec, 
1787. Reproaches her timidity re- 
specting his poetic compliments- 
Remarks on Mr. - - - "r 



XU CONTENTS^. 

XXII. To Mr, Morison^ Wright^ Mauch- 
line. Ellidand^ Jan, 22, 1788. A ludi- 
crous specimen of the Bathos - - 3S 

XXIII. To Mr. Jaines Smithy A~uon Print- 
fidd^ Linlithgow. Mauchline^ April 
28, 1788. Opens a twenty-four gun 
battery — Estimate of some meu's 
icleus — His recent marriage — ^' The 
beginning of sorrows." - - - - SD 

XXiV. To Mr, Rjhert Jinslie. Mauchline, 
May 2^, 1788, Finishing his excise 
instructions — Fortunate in his bar- 
gains — Conjugal happiness — Charac^ 
terofMrs. B 4# 

XXV. To the same. Ellidand^ June 14, 
1 788. Cares and anxieties — Fancy and 
judgment — Hints about marriage - 42 

XXVI. To the same. Ellisland^ June 30, 
1788. About a profile of a Mr. H — . 
Foily of talking about one's private 
aft airs — Close of a letter of Boling- 

broke to Dean Swift 4S 

XX VII. To Mr. George Lockhart^ Merchant^ 
GUsgonv, Mauchline^ July 18, 1788. 
The lovely Miss Bailies — Idea of an 
accomplished woman ----- 45 
XXVIII. To Mr. BeugOj Engraver, Edin- 
burgh. Ellislandj Se/it.9, 1788. At a 
loss for social communication — Ellis- 
land the elbow^ of existence — Ayr- 
shire and his darling Jean - - - - 47 
XXIX. To Miss Chalmers, Edinburgh. Ellis- 
land, near Dumfries, Sept. 16, 1788. 
Bad harvest — Tender regrets — His 
marriage — Description of Mrs. B.— 
Her '^ v/oodnote wild" — Excise — Po- 
etical speculations — Friars Carse - 48 

XXX. To Mrs. Dunlop of Dunlofi. Mauch- 
line, 9.7th Sept. 1788. Grateful for her 



CONTENTS. XI 1 

criticisms — Verses on a mother's loss 

of her son 52 

XXXI. To Mr. James Johnson^ Edinburgh, 
Two more songs — Asks a/afr subject 

' for his muse 54 

XXXII. To D)\ Blacklock. Mauchlinc, .Abi;. 
15, 1788. Poetical labours — Gratitude 
— the Doctor's benevolence -' - - 55 

XXXIII. To Mr. Robert Ainslie, Ellidanci, 
Jem. 6, 1789. Compiiments of the sea- 
son — '•^ Reason and resolve" — ^^ Ne- 
ver to despair." - - ^'^ 

XXXIV. ToMr. James Hamilton^ Grocer^ Glas- 
gow. Ellislanel^ May 26, 1789. Sympa- 
thy in his misfortunes 58 

XXXV. 'To IVm. Creech, Esq. EUisland, May 

30, 1789. Tooth ache personiried 

^ Another specimen of the Bathos » - 59" 

XXXVI. To Mr. Robert Ainslie. Ellhhmd, 
June 8, 1789. Overwhelmed with bi:- 

shiess — Serious counsel . . - ~ ^o 

XXXVII. To Cafit. Riddel, Carse. ElUslaiKU 
Oct, 16, 1789. Poetic apprehensions 
— " The Whistle" — " Here are we 
met." &c. --------- 62 

XXXVIII. To the same. " An old Song." - - 65 
XXXIX- To Mr, Robtrt^ Ainslie, Ellisland, 
Kov. 1, 1789. Appointed to an excise 
division — droll harangue ora recruili- 

ing sergeant 64 

XI.. To Mr, Peter IJill, Bookseller, Edin- 
burgh, Ellisla?idy Feb. 2, ] 790. His ras- 
cally occupation as Gaugcr must serve 
as an apology for his silence — Asks af- 
ter a celebrated lady of his ov»n name 
— Commissions some cheap books — 
Smollett's v>^orks on account of their 
incomparable humoiu' — Is nice only 
in the appearance of his Poet^s — must 
b* 2 



XIV CONTENTS. 

have Cowper's poems and a family bi- 
ble 66 

XLI. To Mr. W, Mcol, Ellidand, Feb. 9, 

1 790. A dead marc — A theatrical com- 
pany — ^^Peg Nicholson." - - - - 6^ 

XLIl. To Mr. Murdoch^ Teacher of French^ 
London Apology for negligence — His 
brother William in London — Venera- 
tion for his father — Mr. Murdoch's in- 
teresting note 71 

X L 1 1 1 . To Cra iifo rd Tait^ Esq. E din b u rgh . 
Ellisland^ Oct. 15, 1790. Introduces 
Mr. Wm. Duncan of Ayrshire — 
Gives his character, and recom- 
mends him to ivir. Tail's good of- 
fices — The power the fortunate en- 
joy to dispense happiness! — Repeats 
his request in the style of the world 
— His own condition 7o 

XLIV. To , Imprecations - - - 7o 

XLV. To Mr. Alexander Dalziel^ Fac- 
tor.^ Findlayston. EUislarid^ March 19, 

1791. Enclosing a poem — Lam.ents 
the death of his noble patron, Lord 
Giencairn — begs to know the day of 

his interment '70 

X.LVI. To Mr. Thomas Sloan. Ellidand.^ 
Sefit. 1, 1791. Favorite quotations on 
foffeitude and perseverance — Roup, 
or Auction, at which his dogs got 
drunk by attending the guests - - 78 
XLVH. To Francis Grose, Esq. F. J. S. 

1792. Introducing Professor Dugald 
Stew^art, whose characteristic features 
hepourtrays 79 

XLVIII. To the same. Three traditions — one 
of them the foundation of his Tarn o' 

Shanter 8(^' 

XLIX. To R. Graha?n. Esrr, Fintrmu Dec, , 



CONTEXTS* XV 

.^o. Paje. 

1792. Pathetic exculpation of himself 
from the cliar^e of disafrection to Go- 
vei iim.ent — adjures Mr . G. to save him 
from impendin,^' ruin. - - - . - 34 

I,. To Mr. T, Clarke.^ Edinburgh. July 
16, 1792. Hum.oroiis invitation to 
come and teach music in the coun- 
try ^5 

LI. Vo Mrs. Dunhfi^ Dec. "1, 1792. Se- 
rious Thoughts — Congratulates her 
recovery from sickness — Suffers from 
occasional hard drinking — resolves to 
leave it off— Excellent remark of 
Bloomfield — Forsv/ears politics - - 86 
LIT. To Patrick jSIzUcr., Esq. of DalsTjin- 
ton. AjiriU 1793. With a copy of anew 
edition of his poems ^^ 

LI II. To John Francis Erskzne^ Esq. of 
Mar. Dumfries, 1 2>th Ajirily 1793. Gra- 
titude for his patronage and friendship 
— escapes dismission from the excise 
—His sentiments on Constitution 
and Reform. Glorious assertion of 
his independence — A pathetic injunc- 
tion -- 89 

LIV. To Mr. Robert Ainslie. April 26, 

1793. The merry devil Sfiunkie his 
tutelar genius — Thoughts on scho- 
larcraft — A tailor's progress in theo- 
logy - - . 93 

LV. To Miss K . Force of beauty 

on Poets — A benediction - - - - 95 
LVL To Eadij Glencairn. Thanks for her 
letter — Gratitude — Advantages of his 
business in the excise — Turns his 
thoughts to the drama - - - - 96 
LVIT. To the Earl of Buchan. With a co- 
py of '' Bruce to his Troops." - - 9^ 
LVllI. Tj the Earl of UUucairn. Remeni- 



XVI ■ CONTENTS. 

J\^o. Page. 
brance of his noble brother — Offers 
ci copy of the new edition of his po- 
ems 99 

LIX. To Dr. Anderson. Declines assisting 
in his purposed publication — Curses 
the Excise 100 

LX. To Mrs, Dunlofi. Castle Douglas^ 2 5 th 
Jiine^ 1794. lii health — Fragment of a 

poem on Liberty ibid, 

LXl. To Mr. Jcuncs Johnson. Sends forty- 
one songs for the fifth volume of the 
Museum — Lord Balmerino's dirk — 
Thanks for the Volunteer ballad - - 102 
LXn. To Miss Font enelle. Accompanying 
a prologue to be spoken on her bene- 
fit 103 

LXIIL- To Peter Miller, Jim. Esq. of Dais-- 
wiuton. Declines an engagement ia 
the Morning Chronicle — offers occa- 
sional contributions 104 

LXIV. To Gavin Haihilton., Esq. Dumfries, 
Congratulations on returning health 
— Cautions against drinking — Father 
Auld .-"..- ^ - - - . 105 
LXV. To Mr. Samuel Clarke, Jun. Dum- 
fries. Sunday 7}ior?iing. Deep concern 
respecting a quarrel — a toast the cause 
of it -' - lOf 

' LXVL ^ 71? Mr. Alexander Findlater, Super- 
visor of Excise, Dumfries. Schemes — 
WisheS' — Hopes ------ 109 

LXVIL To the B.ditors of the Morning Chro- 
nicle. Dumfries. On misdelivery of a pa- 
per containing the Marquis of Lans- 
downe's Speech - - - - - - -110^ 

LXVIIL To Col. W. Dunbar. Is still alive, 
fulfilling one great end of his exist- 
ence — r.'ompliments of the season in 
the bard's own style - - - - - - 1 1 1 



CONTENTS. 



XVli 



JV*. Page. 

LXIX. To Mr. Heron of Heron, \794 or 
1795. Political Ballads — explains his 
situation and expectancies in the Ex- 
cise, but disclainis any wish to hook his 
dependence on Mr. Heron's benevo- 
lence ----------112: 

hXX. To the Right Hon, W, Pitt, Address 
in behalf of the Scots Distillers — 
Speaks to him the language of truth — 
Reflections on the selfish nature of 
Man — Advises him to spurn flattery 
— Hails Mr. P — 's passage to the 
Realms of Ruin — Compares Mr. P. 
to a wide spreading tree cut down by 
one from Heaven — Deplores the ruin 
of Scotland, hurt by the excise laws 
— Ironical consolations for the hour of 
Adversity 114 

LXXI. To the Magistrates of Dumfries, Pe- 
titions to be put on the footing of a 
real freeman as far as relates to the 
privilege they enjoy of having their 
children educated gratis - - - - 1 1 8 

LXXn. To Mr, James Johnson^ Rdinhurgh, 
Dumfries^ Aith July,, 1796. Enquires 
after the Museum — Anxious and pa- 
thetic forebodings on his approaching 
dissolution. '• Hope the cordial of the 
human heart.'' - - - - - - - 119^ 



XVlll OONTENTS. 

Strictures on Scottish Songs ?nd Ballads - - 121 

An aqpotijit of James l\'tler. (Note) - - - - J 92 

CoiDmon-place Book. Jonmals, &c. - - - - 197 

Frugments, MiscelliiDeo\]s Remarks, 8cc. - - 225 



LETTF RS FROM WILLIAM BURNS. 

c/Yo. Page 

I. To Mr. Robert Burns^ Ellisland, 
Longr.wrij ]5l/i Fib. .1789 - - - - 240 
II. To the name. JVeivcastle^ 24th Jan. 

1790 - - 242 

III. To the same. London, 2\st March^ 

1790 243 

'IV. To the same. From Mr. Murdoch.^ 
London.^ 1 4th Se/it. 1790, giving him 
an account of the death of his Brother 
William 245 



POETRY. 
I. 

EPISTLES IN VERSE. 

I. ToJ.Lafiraik, I'^^ih Sefit. 1785 - 249 
II. To the Rev. John M'Math, \7th 
Sept. 1785, enclosing a copy of Holy 
Willie's Prayer - - 25) 

III. To Gavin Hamilton., Esq. Mauchline. 
Recommending a Boy - - - - 254 

IV. To Mr. M^Adam., ofCriagen-Gillan. 
In answer to an obliging Letter he sent 
Burns in the commencement of his 
poetic career -----^--256 

V. To Cafit. Eiddel^ Gienriddel. Ellis- 
land — Extempore lines on returning 
a newspaper - - ^ 257 



CONTENTS, XIX 

J^o. Page. 

VI. To Mr. Maxwell^ ofTerraughty^ on 

his birth-day 258 

VIL To a Lady., with a present of a pair 

of drinking glasses 259 



II. 
MISCELLANEOUS. 



Page. 
Tragic Fragment - - - - - -260 

The Voweis, a Tale - - - - - 261 

A Character * - - - - - - 2 62 

Scots Prologue ------ ibid. 

An extemporaneous effusion on being appointed 

to the Eycise - - - - - 264- 

To the Owl - - - - - - ibid. 

On seeing the beauliful seat of Lord G 266 

On the same ------- ibid. 

On the same - - - - - - - ibid. 

To the same, on the Author being threatened with 

his resentment - - - - - -267 

The Dean of Faculty, a new Ballad - - ibid. 

Extempore in the Court of Session - - - 268 

Verses to J. Ranken ----- 269 

On hearing that there was falsehood in the Rev. 

Dr. B 's very looks - - - - 270 

On a School-master in Cleish Parish, Fife-shire ibid. 
Address to General Dumourier - - - ibid. 

Elegy on the year 1788, a Sketch - - - 271 

Verses written under the Portrait of Fergusson the 

Poet ' 273 



^~< CONTENTS. 



III. 



SONGS. 



Slow spreads the gloom my soul desires - 277 

Ae fond kiss and then we sever, . «. . 278 

Here 's a health to them that 's awa - - 279 

Now bank and brae are ciaith'd in green - - 280 

how can I be blythe and glad - - - ibid. 
Out over the Forth, I look to the north - - 281 
As I was a wand'ring ae morning in spring - 282 

1 *ll ay ca' in by yon town . - - - ibid. 
First when Maggy was my care - - - 283 
Young Jockey was the blythest lad - - - ibid. 

^rewel ye dungeons dark and strong - - '^ j4 

Here 's a bottle and an honest friend - - 285 

Ilk care and fear, when thou art near - - ibid. 

On Cessnock banks there lives a lass - - 286 

Wae is my heart, and the tear's in my e'e - 288 

Her flowing locks, the raven's wing - - ibid. 

To thee, lov'd Nith, thy gladsome plains - ibid. 
The winter it is past, and the simmer comes at last 289 

Yestreen I had a pint o' wine - - - . ibid. 

The Deil cam' fiddling thro' the town - 290 

Powers celestial, whose protection - - - 291 
The heather was blooming, the meadows were 

mawn ------- ibid. 

Young Peggy blooms our boniest lass - - 292 

Amang the trees where humming bees - 293 



LETTERS, &c. 



No. L 
To Mr. JOHN RICHMOND, Edinburgh. 

Mosgiel, Feb. 17, 1786. 

MY DEAR SIR, 

I HAVE not time at present to upbraid you for 
vour silence and neglect; I shall only say I received 
vours with great pleasure. I have enclosed you a piece 
of rhyming ware for your perusal. I have been very 
busy with the muses since 1 saw you, and have com- 
posed among several others, The Ordination^ a poem 
on Mr. M'Kinlay's being called to Kilmarnock ; Scotch 
Drink^ a poem; The Cotter^ s Saturday J\lght ; An Ad- 
dress to the De~uil', &c. I have likewise completed my 
poem on the Dogs^ but have not shewn it to the world. 
My chief patron now is Mr. Aiken in Ayr, who is 
pleased to express great approbation of my works. Be 
so good as send me Fergusson, by Connel,* and I will 
remit you the money. I have no news to acquaint you 
with about Mauchline, they are just going on in the 
old w^ay. I have some very important news with re- 
spect to myself, not the most agreeable, news that I 
am sure you cannot guess, but I shall give you the 

* Connely tlie Mauchline caiTicr. 
B 



particulars another time. I am extremely happy with 
Smith ;* he is the only friend I have noiv in Mauchline. 
I can scarcely forgive your long neglect of me, and I 
beg you will let me hear from you regularly by Con- 
nel. If you would act your part as a friend, I am 
sure neither good nor bad fortune should strange or 
alter me. Excuse haste, as I got yours but yesterday. 
— 1 am. 

My dear Sir, 

Yours, 

ROBERT BURNESS.t 



* Mr. James Smithy then a shop-keeper in Mauchline. It was 
to this young" man that Burns addressed one of his finest per- 
formances — " To J. S— — — — " beginning 

" Dear S , the sleest, paiikie thief. "^^ 

He died in the West-Indies. 

f This is the only letter the Editor has met with in which 
the Poet adds the termination ess to his name, as his father 
ipid family had spelled i t. 



No. II. 

To Mr. M'W IE, Writer, Ayr. 

MosgieU MthAliril^ 1786. 

IT is injuring ^ome hearts, those hearts that ele- 
gantly bear the impression of the good Creator, to say 
to them you give them the trouble of obliging a friend ; 
for this reason, I only tell you that I gratify my oijon 
feelings in requesting your friendly offices with re- 
spect to the inclosed, because I know it will gratify 
yours to assist me in it to the utmost of your power. 

I have sent you four copies, as I have no less than 
eight dozen, which is a great deal more than I shall 
ever need. 

Be sure to remember a poor poet militant in your 
prayers. He looks forward with fear and trembling to 
that, to him, important moment which stamps the die 
with — with — with, perhaps the eternal disgrace of, 

My dear Sir, 

Your humbled, 

afflicted, 

tormented 

ROBERT BURNS. 



No. III. 
To Mons. JAMES SMITH, Mauchline. 

Monday Mornings Mosgiel^ 1786. 

MY DEAR SIR5 

I WENT to Dr. Douglas yesterday fully re- 
solved to take the opportuuiiLy of Capt. Smith ; but I 
found the Doctor with a Mr. and Mrs. White, both 
Jamaicans, and they have deranged my plans altoge- 
ther. They assure him that to send me ifrom Savannah 
la Mar to Port Antonio will cost my master^ Charles 
Douglas, upwards of fifty pounds; besides running 
the risk of throwing myself into a pleuritic fever in 
consequence of hard travelling in the sun. On these 
accounts, he refuses sending me with Smith, but a 
vessel sails from Greenock the first of Sept. right for 
the place of my destination. The Captain of her is an 
intimate of Mr. Garvin Hamilton's, and as good a fel- 
low as heart could wish : with him I am destined to 
go. Where I shall shelter, I know not, but I hope to 
weather the storm. Perish the drop of blood of mine 
that fears them ! I know their worst, and am prepared 
to meet it. — 

I '11 laugh, an' sing, an' shake my leg, 
As lang 's I dow. 

On Thursday morning if you can muster as much 
self-denial as to be out of bed about seven o'clock, I 
shall see you as I ride through to Cumnock. After all, 
Heaven bless the sex! I feel there is still happiness 
tor me among them. — 

O woman, lovely woman! Heaven designed you 
To temper man ! we had be^n brutes without you ! 



No. IV. 
To Mr. DAVID BRICE. 

Mosgetl^ Jjme I2y 1786. 

DEAR BIIICE, 

I RECEIVED your message oy G. Paterjon, and 
as I am not very throng at present, I just write to let 
you know that there is such a worthless, rhyming re- 
probate, as your humble servant, still in the land of 
the living, though I can scarcely say, in the place of 
hope. I have no news to tell you that will give me 
any pleasure to mention or you to hear. 
* * * * 

And now for a grand cure ; the ship is on her way 
home that is to take me out to Jamaica ; and then, 
farewel dear old Scotland, and farewel dear ungrateful 
Jean, for never, never will 1 see you more. 

You will have heard that I am going to commence 
Poet in print ; and to-morrow my works go to the 
press. I expect it will be a volume of about two hun- 
dred, pages — it is just the last foolish action I intend 
to do J and then turn a wise man c^sjast as possible. 

Believe me to be, 

Dear Brice, 

Your friend and weM-wishej 



No. V. 
To GAVIN HAMILTON, Esq. Mauchline. 
Edinburgh^ Dec, 7, 1786. 

HONORED SIR, ^ 

I HAVE paid every attention to your commands, 
but can only say *.»^hat perhaps you will have heard be- 
fore this reach you, that Muirkirklands were bought 
by a John Gordon, W. S. but for whom I know not; 
Mauchlands, Haugh Miln, &:c. by a Frederick Fother- 
ingham, supposed to be for Ballochmyle Laird, and 
Adamhiil and Shawood were bought for Oswald's 
folks. — This is so imperfect an account, and will be 
so late ere it reach you, that were it not to discharge 
my conscience I would not trouble you with it; but 
after all my diligence I could make it no sooner nor 
better. 

For my own affairs, I am in a fair way of becoming 
as eminent as Thomas a Kempis or John Bunyan ; and 
you may expect henceforth to see my birth-day in- 
serted among the v/onderful events, in the poor Ro- 
bin's and Aberdeen Almanacks, along with the Black 
Monday, and the battle of Bothwel bridge. — My lord 
Glencairn and the Dean of Faculty, Mr. H. Erskine, 
have taken me under their wing ; and by all probabi- 
lity I sht^U soon be the tenth worthy, and the eighth 
wise man of the world. Through my lord's influence 
it is inserted in the records of the Caledonian hunt, 
that they universally, one and all, subscribe for the 2d 
edition. — My subscription bills come out to-morrow, 
and you shall have some of them next post. — 1 have 
met in Mr. Dairy mple, of Orangefield, what Solomon 
emphacically calls, " A friend that sticketh closer than 
a brother." — The warmth v/ith which he interests 
himself in my affairs is of the same enthusiastic kind 
which you. Mr. Aiken, and the few patrons that took 



notice of my earlier poetic days shewed for the poor 
unlucky devil of a poet. 

I always remember Mrs. Hamilton and Miss Ken- 
nedy in my poetic prayers, but you both in prose and 
verse. 

May cauld ne'er catch you but* a hap. 
Nor hunger but in plenty's lap ! 
Amen ! 



No. VI. 

To Dr. M'KENZIE, Mauchline. 

Inclosing him the Extemjiore Verses en dining with 



Lord Daer. 

Wednesday Morning, 



DEAR SIR 



I NEVER spent an afternoon among great folks 
with half that pleasure as v/hen, in company with you, 
I had the honor of paying my devoirs to that plain, 
honest, worthy man, the professor. t I would be de- 
lighted to see him perform acts of kindness and friend- 
shfp, though I were not the object ; he does it with 
such a grace. I think his character, divided into ten 
parts, stands thus — four parts Socrates — four parts 
Nathaniel — and two parts Shakspeare's Brutus. 

The foregoing verses v/ere really extempore, but a 
little corrected since. They may entertain you a little 
with the help of that partiality with which you are 
so good as favor the performances of 

Dear Sir, 

Your verv humble Servant. 



* " But" is frequently used for ''without;" i. e. u^ithout 
clot hi tig. 

fProfessoy Dug-ald SteT\*ar^ 



8 

No. VII. 

To JOHN RALLANTINE, Esq. Banker, Ayr. 
Edinburgh^ \Wi Dec, 1786. 

MY HONORED FRIEND, 

I WOULD not write you till I could have it in 
my power to give you some account of myself and 
my matters, which by the bye is often no easy task. — 
I arrived here on Tuesday was se'nnight, and have 
suffered ever since I came to town with a miserable 
head-ache and stomach complaint, but am now a good 
deal better. — I have found a worthy warm friend in 
Mr. Dalrympie, of Orangefield, who introduced me 
lo Lord Glencairn, a man v/hose worth and brotherly 
kindness to me, I shall remember when time shall be 
no more. — By his interest it is passed in the Caledo- 
nian hunt, and entered in their books, that they are to 
take each a copy of the second edition, for which they 
are to pay one guinea. — I have been introduced to a 
good many of the Xohltssc^ but my avowed patrons 
and patronesses are, the Duchess of Gordon — The 
Countess of Glencairn, with my Lord, and Lady 
Betty* — The Dean of Faculty — Sir John Whitefoord. 
— I have likewise warm friends among the literati ; 
Professors Stewart, Blair, and Mr. M^Kenzie — the 
Man of feeling. — An unknown hand left ten guineas 
for the Ayrshire bard with Mr. Sibbald, which I got, 
— I since have discovered my generous unknown 
friend to be Patrick Miller, Esq. brother to the Jus- 
tice Clerk ; and drank a glass of claret with him by 
invitation at his own house yesternight. I am nearly 
agreed with Creech to print my book, and I suppose 
I will begin on Monday. I will send a subscription 

* Lady Betty Cunniftf ham. 



bill or two, next post ; when I intend writing my first 
kind patron, Mr. Aiken. I saw his son to day and he 
is very well. 

Dugald Stewart, and some of my learned friends, 
put me in the periodical paper called the Lounger,* a 
copy of which 1 here enclose you — I was, sir, when 
I was first honored with your notice, too obscure ; now 
I tremble lest I should be ruined by being dragged 
too suddenly into the glare of polite and learned ob- 
servation. 

I shall certainly, my ever honored patron, write you 
an account of my every step ; and better health and 
more spirits may enable me to make it something bet- 
ter than this stupid matter of fact epistle. 
1 have the honor to be, 
Good Sir, 
Your ever grateful humble servant. 

If any of my friends write me, my direction isj care 
»f Mr. Creech, bookseller. 



No. VIII.* 
To Mr. WILLIAM CHALMERS, Writer, Ayr. 
Edinburgh^ Dec. 27, 1786. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, 

I CONFESS I have sinned the sin for which 
there is hardly any forgiveness — ingratitude to friend- 
ship — in not writing you sooner; but of all men liv- 
ing, I had intended to send you an entertaining letter; 

* The paper here alluded to, was written by Mr. M'Kenzie, 
the celebrated author of the Man of feeling". 

i This letter is now presented entire. 



10 

and by all the plodding, stupid powers, that in nodding, 
conceited majesty, preside over the dull routine of bu- 
siness — A heavily-solemn oath this ! — I am, and have 
been, ever since I came to Edinburgh, as unfit to write 
a letter of humor, as to write a commentary on the 
Revelation of St. John the Divine, who was banish- 
ed to the Isle of Patmos, by the cruel and bloody Domi- 
tian, son to Vespasian and brother to Titus, both empe- 
rors of Rome, and who was himself an emperor, and 
raised the second or third persecution, I forget which, 
against the Christians, and after throwing the said 
Apostle John, brother to the Apostle James, com- 
monly called James the greater, to distinguish him from 
another James, who was, on some account or other, 
known by the name of James the less, after throwing 
him into a caldron of boiling oil, from which he was 
miraculously preserved, he banished the poor son of 
Zebedee, to a desart island in the Archipelago, where 
he was gifted with the second sight, and saw as many 
wild beasts as I have seen since I came to Edinburgh ; 
which, a circumstance not very uncommon in story- 
telling, brings me back to where I set out. 

To make you some amends for what, before you 
reach this paragraph, you will have suffered ; I enclose 
you two poems I have carded and spun since I past 
Glenbuck. 

One blank in the address to Edinburgh — '< Fair 

B ,'' is heavenly Miss Burnet, daughter to Lord 

Monboddo, at whose house 1 have had the honor to be 
more than once. 

There has not been any thing nearly like her, in all 
the combinations of beauty, grace, and goodness, the 
Great Creator has formed, since Milton's Eve on the 
first day of her existence. 

My direction is~care of Andrew Bruce, merchant, 
Bridge-Street. 



11 

No. IX. 
To JOHN BALLANTINE, Esq. 

Edinburgh^ Jan, 14, 178^, 

MY HONORED FRIEND, 

IT gives me a secret comfort to observe in my- 
self that I am not yet so far gone as Willie Gaw's 
Skate, " past redemption;"* for I have still this favor- 
able symptom of grace, that when my conscience, as 
in the case of this letter, tells me I am leaving some- 
thing undone that I ought to do, it teazes me eternally 
till I do it. 

I am still ^'dark as was Chaos" in respect to futuri- 
ty. My generous friend, Mr. Patrick Miller, has been 
talking with me about a lease of some farm or other 
in an estate called Dalswinton, which he has lately 
bought near Dumfries. Some life-rented embittering 
recollections whisper me that 1 will be happier any 
where than in my old neighbourhood, but Mr. Miller 
is no judge of land; and though 1 dare say he means 
to favor me, yet he may give me in his opinion an ad- 
vantageous bargain, that may ruin me. I am to take a 
tour by Dumfries as I return, and have promised to 
meet Mr. Miller oh his lands some time in May. 

I went to a Mason-lodge yesternight, where the 
most Worshipful-Grand Master Charters, and all the 
Grand-Lodge of Scotland visited. — The meeting was 
numerous and elegant; all the different Lodges about 
tov/n were present, in all their pomp. The Grand 
Master, who presided with great solemnity and honor 



* Tills is one of a great number of old saivs that Burns, 
when a lad, had picked up from his mother, of which the 
good old woman had a vast collection. This veneral^le and 
most respectable person is still living, under the sheltering 
roof of her son Gilbert, on his farm, near Dumfries. V. 



12 

to himself as a gentleman and Mason, among other 
general toasts gave '*• Caledonia, and Caledonia's iJard, 
Brother B— ," which rung through the whole as- 
sembly with multiplied honors and repeated acclama- 
tions. As I had no idea such a thing would happen, 
I was downright thunder-struck, and trembling in 
every nerve made the best return in my power. Just 
as I had finished, some of the grand officers said, so 
loud that I could hear, with a most comforting accent, 
" Very well indeed 1" which set me something to 

rights again. 

* * ^ * 

I have to-day corrected my 152nd page. My best 
good wishes to Mr. Aiken. 

I am ever. 

Dear Sir, 

Your much indebted humble Servant. 



No. X. 

TO THE SAME. 

WHILE here I sit, sad and solitary, by the side 
of a fire in a little country inn, and drying my wet 
clothes, in pops a poor fellow of a sodger and tells 
me he is going to Ayr. By heavens I say I to myself, 
v/ith a tide of good spirits which the magic of that 
sound, Auld Toon o' Ayr, conjured up, 1 will send 
my last song to Mr. Ballantine. — Here it is — 

Ye flowery banks o' bonie Doon,* 

How can ye biume sae fair; , 

How can ye chant, ye little birds. 
And I sae fu' o' care I 



* The reader will perceive that the measure of this copy 
of the " Banks o' bonie Doon," differs from that which is 



Thou Ml break my heart, thou bonie bird 
That sings upon the bough ; 

Thou nainds me o' the happy days 
When my fause luve was true. 

Thou '11 break my heart, thou bonie bird 
That sings beside thy mate ; 

For sae I sat, and sae I sang. 
And wist na o' my fate. 

Aft hae I rov'd my bonie Doon, 
To see the wood-bine twine, 

And ilka brid sang o' its love, 
And sae did J o' mine. 

Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose 

Frae aff its thorny tree. 
And my fause luver staw the rose^ 

But left the thorn wi' me. 



already published. Burns was obliged to adapt his words to 
a particular air, and in so doing he lost much of the simpli- 
city and beautv which the song possesses in its present state 

E 



14 

No. XI. 
TO THE SAME. 

Edinburgh^ Feb. 24, 1787. 

MY HONOUED FRIEND, 

I WILL soon be 'with you now in guid black 
firent ; in a week or ten days at farthest — I am obliged, 
against my own wish, to print subscribers' names, so 
if any of my Ayr friends have subscription bills, they 
must be sent into Creech directly. — I am getting my 
phiz done by an eminent engraver; and if it can be 
reaciy in time, I will appear in my book looking like 
other ybo^5, to my title-page.* 

I have the honour to be, 

Ever your grateful, &c. 



* This portrait is engraved by Mr. Beugo, an artist wha 
well merits the epithet bestowed on him by the poet, after a 
picture of Mr. Nasmyth, which he painted con amove, and li- 
berally presented to Burns. This picture is of tJie cabinet 
size, and is now in the possession of Mr. Alex. Cunningham, 
of Edinburarh E, 



15 

No. Xlf . 
To Mr. JAMES CANDLISH, 

Student in Physic, College, Glasgow. 

Edinburgh^ March SI, 1787. 

MY EVER DEAR OLD ACqUAINTANCE, 

I WAS equally surprised and pleased at youi 
letter; though I dare say you will think by my delay- 
ing so long to write to you, that I am so drowned in 
the intoxication of good fortune as to be indifferent to 
old and once dear connections. The truth is, I was de* 
termined to write a good letter, full of argument, am- 
plification, erudition, and, as Bayes says, all that, I 
thought of it, and thought of it, but for my soul I can- 
not: and lest you should mistake the cause of my si- 
lence, I just sit down to tell you so. Don't give your- 
self credit though, that the strength of your logic 
scares me: the truth is, I never mean to meet you on 
that ground at all. You have shewn me one thing, 
which was to be demonstrated ; that strong pride of 
reasoning, with a little affectation of singularity, may 
mislead the best of hearts. I, likewise, since you and 
I were first acquainted, in the pride of despising old 
women's stories, ventured in '' the daring path Spi- 
nosa trod ;" but experience of the weakness, not the 
strength, of human powers, made me glad to grasp at 
revealed religion. 

I must stop, but don't impute my brevity to a wrong 
cause. I am still, in the Apostle Paul's phrase, ^' The 
old man with his deeds" as when we were sporting 
about the lady thorn. I shall be four weeks here yet, 
at least; and so I shall expect to hear from you — wel- 
come sense, welcome nonsense. 

I am, with the warmest sincerity. 

My dear old friend, 

YoiU's . 



16 

No. XIII. 
TO THE SAME. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, 

IF once I were gone from this scene of hurry 
and dissipation, I pronnise myself the pleasure of that 
correspondence being renewed which has been so long 
broken. At present I have time for nothing. Dissipa- 
tion and business engross every moment. I am en- 
gaged in assisting an honest Scots enthusiast,* a friend 
of mine, who is an engraver, and has taken it into his 
head to publish a collection of all our songs set to 
music, of which the vvords and music are done by 
Scotsmen. This, you will easily guess, is an under- 
taking exactly suited to my taste. I have collected, 
begged, borrowed, and stolen ail the songs [ could 
meet with. Pompey's Ghost, words and music, I beg 
from you immediately, to go into his second number : 
the first is already published. I shall shew you the first 
nunfiber when I see you in Glasgow, which will be in 
a fortnight or less. Do be so kind as send me the song 
in a day or two : you cannot imagine how much it will 
oblige me. 

Direct to me at Mr. VV. Cruikshank's, St. James's 
Square, New Town, Edinburgh. 

* Johnson, the publisher of the Scots Musical Museum 



17 

NO. XIV. 

To WILLIAM CREECH, Esq. {of Edinburgh,) 
London. 

Selkirk y 13M May, 1787. 

MY HONORED FRIEND, 

THE inclosed I have just wrote, nearly extem- 
pore, in a solitary Inn in Selkirk, after a miserable wet 
day's riding. — I have been over most of East Lothian, 
Berwick, Roxburgh, and Selkirkshires ; and next week 
I begin, a tour through the north of England. Yester- 
day I dined with Lady Hariot, sister to my noble pa- 
tron,* Quein DeiLs constrvet I I would write till I v;ould 
tire you as much v/ith dull prose as I dare say by this 
time you are with wretched verse, but I am jaded to 
death ; so, vvith a grateful farewel, 

I have the honor to be, 

Good Sir, vours sincerely 



Aukl chuckie Reekie^a^ sair distrest, 
Down droops her ance wee'l burnish't crest, 
Nae joy her bonie buskit nast 

Can yield ava. 
Her darling bird that she loe's best 

Willie's awa ! 



James, Earl of Glcncuini. 
I Edinburgh, 
c 2 



18 

II. 

O Willie was a witty wight, 

And had o' things an unco' slight; 

Auld Reekie ay he keep it tight, 

And trig an' braw : 
But now they '11 busk her like a fright 

Willie 's awa 1 
III. 
The stiffest o' them a' he bow'd. 
The bauldest o' them a* he cow'd ; 
They durst nae mair than he allow'd, 
That was a law : 
We 've lost a birkie weel worth gowd, 

Willie's awa! 

IV. 

Now gawkies, tawpies, gowks and fools, 
Frae colleges and boarding schools, 
May sprout like simmer puddock-stools 

In glen or shaw ; 
lie wha could brush them down to mools 

Willie 's awa ! 



The breth'ren o' the Commerce-Chaumer* 
May mourn their loss wi' doolfu' clamour; 
lie was a dictionar and grammar 

Amang them a' ; 
I fear they '11 now mak mony a stammer 

VI. 

Nae mair we see his levee door 
Philosophers and Poets pour,t 



* The Chamber of Commerce of Edinburgh, of which Mr. 
C. was Secretary. 

fMany literary gentlem.en were accustomed to meet at 
Mr. C — 's house at breakfast. Burns often met with them 
there, when he called, and hence the name of Lcvtt. 



19 

And toothy critics by the score 

In bloody raw ! 
The adjutant o* a' the core 

Willie's awal 

VII. 

Now worthy G*****y's latin face, 
T****r's and G*********'s modest grace; 
M^K****e5 S****t, such a brace 

As Rome ne'er saw ; 
They a' maun meet some ither place, 

Willie 's awa! 

VIII. 

Poor Burns — e'en Scotch drink canna quicken, 
He cheeps like some bewildered chicken, 
Scar'd frae it's minnie and the cleckin 
By hoodie-craw; 
Grief's gien his heart an unco kickin', 

Willie's awa! 

IX. 

Now ev'ry sour-mou'd girnin' blellum, 
And Calvin's fock, are fit to fell him ; 
And self-conceited critic skellum 

His quill may draw ; 
He wha could brawlie ward their bellum 

Willie 's awal 

X. 

Up wimpling stately Tweed I 've sped, 
And Eden scenes on chrystal Jed, 
And Ettrick banks now roaring red 

While tempests blaw ; 
But every joy and pleasure 's fled 

Wille's awa! 

XI. 

May I be slander's common speech ; 
A text for infamy to preach; 
And lastly, streekit out to bleach 

In winter snaw; 
When I forget thee I Willie CrekcH; 

Tho' fur ;iw5il 



20 

xir. 

May never wicked fortune touzle him 1 
May never wicked man bamboozle him !^ 
Until a pow as auld's Methusalem ! 

He canty claw ! 
Then to the blessed, New Jerusalem 

Fleet wine- awo 



No. XV. 
To Mr. W. NICOL5 

Master of the High School, Edinburgh. 

Carlisle^ June 1, 1787\ 

KIND HONEST-HEAKTED WILLIE, 

I'M sitten down here, after seven and forty 
miles ridin, e'en as forjesket and forniaw'd as a for- 
foughten cock, to gie you some notion o' my land 
lowper-iike stravaguin sin the sorrowfu' hour that I 
sheuk hands and parted wi' auld Reekie, 

My auld, ga'd gleyde o' a meere has huchyall'd 
up hiil and down brae, in Scotland and England, as 
teugh and birnie as a very devil wi' me.* It 's true, 



* This mare was the Poet's favourite Jenny Gei>des, of 
whom honourable and most humorous mention is made in a 
letter, inserted in Dr. Carrie's edition, vol. i, p. 165. 

This old faltliful servant of the Poet's was named by him, 
after the old woman, who in her zeal against religious inno- 
vation, threw a stool at the Dean of Edinburgh's head, 
when he attempted in 1637, to introduce the Scottish Liturgy. 
*^0n Sunda)^, the twenty -third of July, the Dean of Edinburg-h 
prepared to officiate in St. Giles's. The cong-reg-ation conti- 
nued quiet till the service began, when an old woman, impell- 
ed by sudden indignation, started up, and exclaiming aloud. 



21 

she 's as poor 's a sang-maker, and as hard 's a kirk, 
and tipper-taipers when she taks the gate, first like a 
lady's gentlewoman in a minuwae, or a hen on a het 
girdle, but she 's a yauld, poutherie Girran for a' that, 
and has a stomack like Willie Stalker's meere that 
wad hae disgeested tumbler-wheels, for she'll whip 
me aff her five stimparts o' the best aits at a down-sit- 
tin and ne'er fash her thumb. When ance her ring- 
banes and spavies, her crucks and cramps, are fairly 
soupi'd, she beets to, beets to, and ay the hindmost 
hour the tightest. I could wager her price to a thret- 
ty pennies that, for twa or three wooks ridin at fifty 
mile a day, the deilsticket a five gallopers acqueesh 
Clyde and Wliithorn could cast saut on her tail. 

I hae dander'd owre a' the Kintra frae Dumbar to 
Selcraig, and hae forgather'd wi' mony a guid fallow, 
and monie a weelfar'd hizzie. I met wi' twa dink 
quines in particlar, ane o' them a sonsie, fine, fodgel 
lass, baith braw and bonie ; the tither was a clean- 
shankit, straught, tight, weelfar'd winch, as blythe^s 
a lintwhite on a flowerie thorn, and as sweet and mo- 
dest 's a new blawn piumrose in a hazel shaw. They 
were baith bred to mainers by the beuk, and onie ane 
o' them had as muckle smeddum and rumblgump- 
tion as the half o' some presbytries that you and I 
baith ken. They play'd me sik a decvil o' a shavie that I 
daur say if my harigals were turn'd out, ye wad see 
twa nicks i' the heart o' me like the mark o' a kail- 
whittle in a castock. 

I was gaun to write you a lang pystle, but, Gude fcr- 
gie me, I gat mysel sae notouriously bitchify'd the 
day after kail-time that I can hardly stoiter but and 
ben. 



* Vlllahi ! dost thou say the Mass at my lug ?' threw the stool 
on which she had been sitting-, at the Dean's head. A wild 
uproar commenced that instant. The woman invaded the desk 
with execrations and outcries, and the Dean disengaged him- 
self from his surplice to escape from their hands." — Lain fa 
Ifistory of Scotland, vol. iii, p. 122. E. 



22 

My best respecks to the guidwife and a^ our com- 
•mon fiiens, especidll Mr. and Mrs, Cruikshank and 
the honest guidman o* Jock's Lodge. 

I '11 be in Dumfiiesthe morn gif the beast be to the 
fore, and the branks bide hale. 

Gude be ^wV you, Willie 1 

Amen !- — 



No. XVI. 
TO THE SAME. 

Mauchliney Ju7ie 18, 1787. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, 

I am now arrived safe in my native country, af- 
ter a very agreeable jaunt, and have the pleasure to 
find all my friends welL I breakfasted with your gray- 
headed, reverend friend, Mr. Smith ; and was highly 
pleased both with the cordial w'elcome he gave me, and 
his most excellent appearance and sterling good sense. 

I have been v/ith Mr. Miller at Dalswinton, and am 
to meet him again in August. From my view of the 
lands and his reception of my hardship, my hopes in 
that business are rather mended ; but still they are 
but slender. 

I am quite charmed wath Dumfries folks — Mr. 
Burnside, the clergyman, in particular, is a man whom 
I shall ever gratefully remember; and his wife, Gude 
forgie me, I had almost broke the tenth command- 
ment on her account. Simplicity, elegance, good sense, 
sweetness of disposition, good humor, kind hospita- 
lity, are the constituents of her manner and heart; in 
short — but if I say one word more about her, I shall 
be directly in love with her. 

I never, my friend, thought mankind very capable 
of any thing generous; but the stateliness of the Pa- 



2ri 
O 

thcians in Edinburgh, and the servility of my ple- 
beian brethren, (who perhaps formerly eyed me as- 
kance,) since 1 returned home, have nearly put me 
out of conceit altogether with my species. I have 
bought a pocket Milton which 1 carry perpetually 
about with me, in order to study the sentiments — the 
dauntless magnanimity ; the intrepid, unyielding in- 
dependance, the desperate, daring, and noble defiance 
of hardship, in that great personage, Satax. 'Tis 
true, 1 have just now a little cash ; but I am afraid the 
star that hitherto has shed its malignant, purpose- 
blasting rays full in my zenith ; that noxious planet so 
baneful in its influences to the rhyming tribe, I much 
dread it is not yet beneath my horizon. — Misfortune 
dodges the path of human life; the poetic mind finds 
itself miserably deranged in, and unfit for the walks of 
business; add to all, that thoughtless. follies and hare- 
brained whims, like so many ignes fatid^ etemailv 
divergmg from the right line of sober discretion, 
sparkle with step-bewitching blaze in the idly-gazing 
eyes of the poor heedless Bard, till, pop, '•befalls 
like Lucifer, never to hcpe again." God grant this 
may be an unreal picture with respect to me! but 
should it not, I have very little dependance on man- 
kind. 1 will close my letter with this tribute my heart 
bids me pay you — the many ties of acquaintance and 
friendship which I have, or think I have in life, 1 have 
felt along the lines and, d — n them I they are almost 
all of them of such frail contexture, that I am sure 
they would not stand the breath of the least adverse 
breeze of fortune ; but from you, my ever dear sir, I 
look with confidence for the Apostolic love that shall 

wait on me ''through good report and bad report" 

the love which Solomon emphatically says "Is strong 
as death." My compliments to Mrs. Nicoi, and all the 
circle of our common friends. 

P. S. I shall be in Edinburgh about the latter end 
of July. 



24 

No. XVII. 
To GAVIN HAMILTON, Esq. 

Stirling^ 28t/i Aug. 1787. 

MY DEAR SIR, 

HERE am I on my way to Inverness. I have 
rambled over the rich, fertile carses of Falkirk and 
Stirling, and am delighted with their appearance: 
richly waving crops of wheat, barley, 8cc. but no har- 
vest at all yet, except in one or two places, an old 
Wife's Ridge. — Yesterday morning I rode from this 
town up the meandring Devon's banks to pay my re- 
spects to some Ayrshire folks at Harvieslon. After 
breakfast, we made a party to go and see the famous 
Caudron-linn, a remarkable cascade in the Devon, 
about five miles above Harvieston ; and after spend- 
ing one of the most pleasant days I ever had in my 
life, I returned to Stirling in the evening. They are a 
family, Sir, though I had not had any prior tie ; though 
they had not been the brother and sisters of a certain 
generous friend of mine, I would never forget them. 
I am told you have not seen them these several years, 
so you can have very little idea of what these young 
folks are now. Your brother is as tall as you are, but 
, slender rather than otherwise ; and I have the satis- 
faction to inform you that he is getting the better of 
those consumptive symptoms which I suppose you 
know were threatening him. His make, and particu- 
larly his manner, resemble you, but he will still have 
a finer face. (I put in the word stilly to please Mrs. 
Hamilton.) Good sense, modesty, and at the same time 
a just idea of that respect that man owes to man, and 
has a right in his turn to exact, are striking features 
in his character ; and, what with me is the Alpha and 
the Omega, he has a heart might adorn the breast of 
a poet! Grace has a good figure and the look of health 



25 

and cheerfulness, but nothing else remarkable in her 
person. I scarcely ever saw so striking a likeness as 
is between her and your little Beennie ; the mouth 
and chin particularly. She is reserved at first; but as 
we grew better acquainted, I was delighted with the 
native frankness of her manner, and the sterling sense 
of her observation. Of Charlotte, I cannot speak in 
common terms of admiration': she is not only beauti- 
ful, but lovely. Her form is elegant; her features not 
regular, but they have the smile of sweetness and tiie 
settled complacency of good nature in the highest de- 
gree ; and her complexion, now that she has happily 
recovered her wonted health, is equal to Miss Bur- 
net's. After the exercise of our riding to the Falls, 
Charlotte was exactly Dr. Donne's mistress : 

^ Her pure and eloquent blood 



" Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wroug'ht, 
** That one would almost say her body thought." 

Her tjyes are fascinating ; at once expressive of good 
sense, tenderness, and a noble mind. 

I do not give you all this account, my good Sir, to 
flatter you. I mean it to approach you. Such relations 
the fii'St peer in the realm might own with pride; then 
why do you not keep up more correspondence with 
these so amiable young folks ? I had a thousand ques- 
tions to answer about you all : I had to describe the 
little ones with the minuteness of anatomy. They were 
highly delighted when I told them that John* was so 
good a boy, and so fine a scholar, and that Willief 
was going on still very pretty ; but I have it in com- 



* This is the ^^ tvee curlie Johnnie,''^ mentioned in Burns's de- 
dication to Gavin Hamilton, Esq. To this g-entleman, and ovo: ;■ 
branch of tlie family, the Editor is indebted for much iiif)rm.i- 
lion respecting the poet, and very gratefully ackno\vicdg"cs 
the kindness shewn to himself. 

fNow married to the Kcv. Joliu Tod, Mlj;isU • v.f Mau( ;.- 
iihc. 



26 

mission to tell her from them that beauty is a poor 
silly bauble without she be good. Miss Chalmers I 
had left in Edinburgh, but I had the pleasure of meet- 
ing with Mrs. Chalmers, only Lady M'Kenzie being 
rather a little alarmingly in of a sore-throat somewhat 
marr'd our enjoyment. 

I shall not be in Ayrshire for four weeks. My most 
respectful compliments to Mrs. Hamilton, Miss Ken- 
nedy, and Doctor M'Kenzie. I shall probably write him 
from some stage or other. 

I am ever, Sir, 

Yours most gratefully. 



The following fragments are all that now exist of twelve or 
fourteen of the finest letters that Burns ever wrote. In an 
evil hour, the originals were thrown into tlie fire by the late 
Mrs. Adair of Harrowgate ; the Charlotte so often mentioned 
in this correspondence, and the lady to whom " The^Banks 
of the BevovH'* is addressed. E. 

No. XVIII. 



To Miss MARGARET CHALMERS, {iion^ Mr^. 
Hay^ of Edinburgh.^ 

Sept. 26, 1787. 

I SEND Charlotte the first number of the songs; 
I would not wait for the second number ; I hate delays 
in little marks of friendship, as I hate dissimulation 
in the language of the. heart. I am determined to pay 
Charlotte a poetic compliment, if I could hit on some 
glorious ojd Scotch air, in number second.* You will 
see a small attempt on a shred of paper in the book ; 
but though Dr. Blacklock commended it very highly i 



* Of the Scot's Musical Museum. 



27 

I am not just satisfied with it myself. I intend to make 
it description of some kind : the whining cant of love? 
except in real passion, and by a masterly hand, is 'to 
me as insufferable as the preaching cant of old Father 
Smeaton, Whig-minister at Kilmaurs. Darts, flames, 
cupids, loves, graces, and all that farrago, are just a 
Mauchline * * * * — a senseless rabble. 

I got an excellent poetic epistle yesternight from 
the old, venerable author of Tullochgorum, John of 
Badenyon, Sec. I suppose you knov/he is a clergyman. 
It is by far the finest compliment I ever got. I will 
send you a copy of it. 

I go on Thursday or Friday to Dumfries to v/ait on 
Mr. Miller about his farms. — Do tell that to Lady 
M'Kenzie, that she may give me credit for a little 
wisdom. " I wisdom dwell with prudence." What a 
blessed fire-side ! How happy should I be to pass a 
winter evening under their venerable roof! and smoke 
a pipe of tobacco, or drink water-gruel with them i 
What solemn, lengthened, laughter-quashing gravity 
of phiz ! What sage remarks on the good-for-nothing 
sons and daughters of indiscretion and folly ! And 
what frugal lessons, as we straitened the fire-side cir- 
cle, on the uses of the poker and tongs. 

Miss N. is very well, and begs to be remembered 
in the old way to you. I used all my eloquence, all the 
persuasive flourishes of the hand, and heart-melting 
modulation of periods in my power, to urge her out 
to Herveiston, but all in vain. My rhetoric seems 
quite to have lost its efl'ect on the lovely half of man- 
kind. I have seen the day — but that is a "tale of other 
years." — In my conscience I believe that my heart has 
been so oft on fire that it is absolutely vitrified. I look 
on the sex with something like the admiration with 
which I regard the starry sky in a frosty Decembei* 
night, I admire the beauty of the Creator's workman- 
ship; I am charmed with the wild but graceful ec- 
centricity of their motions, and — wish them good 
night. 1 mean this with respect to a certain passion 
dont f ai eii I' honiieiir d'etre nn iniserable csclave: as for 



28 

friendship, you and Charlotte have given me pleasure 
permanent pleasure, "which the world cannot give? 
nor take away" I hope ; and which will outlast the 
heavens and the earth. 



Without date. 

I HAVE been at Dumfries and at one visit 
more shall be decided about a farm m that country. 
I am rather hopeless in it; but as my brother is an 
excellent farmer, and is besides, an exceedingly pru- 
dent, sober man, (qualities which are only a younger 
brother's fortune in our family,) I am determined,- if 
my Dumfries business fail me, to return into partner- 
ship with him, and at our leisure take another farm in 
the neighbourhood. 1 assure you 1 look for high com- 
pliments from you and Charlotte on this very sage in- 
stance of my unfathomable, incomprehensible wisdom. 
Talking of Charlotte, I must tell her that 1 have, to 
the best of my power, paid her a poetic compliment, 
no v/ completed. The air is admirable : tune old High- 
land. It was the tune of a Gaelic song which an Inver- 
ness lady sung m.e when I was there; and I was so 
charmed with it that I begged her to write me a set of 
it from her singing; for it never had been set before. 
I am fixed that it shall go in Johnson's next number; 
so Charlotte and you need not spend your precious 
time in contradicting me. I v/on't say the poetry is 
first-rate ; though I am convinced it is very well : and, 
what is not always the case with compliments to ladies, 
it is not only sincere hMljust, 

(^r ^ ": v^ ^'- oong of '^> The Banks of the Devon ^l 



1 



29 



Edinburgh^ Mv. 21, 1787. 

I HAVE one vexatious fault to the kindly-wel- 
come, well-filled sheet which I owe to your and Char- 
lotte's goodness — it contains too much sense, senti- 
ment, anii^ood-spelling. It is impossible that even 
you twcT," whom I declare to my God, I will give cre- 
dit for any degree of excellence the sex are capable of 
attaining, it is impossible you can go on to correspond 
at that rate ; so like those who, Shenstone says, retire 
because they have made a good speech, I shall after a 
few letters hear no more of you. I insist that you shall 
write whatever comes first: what you see, what you 
read, what you hear, what you admire, what you dis- 
like, trifles, bagatelles, nonsense ; or to fill up a cor- 
ner, e'en put down a laugh at full length. Now none 
of your polite hints about flattery: I leave that to your 
lovers, if you have or shall have any ; though thank 
heaven I have found at last two girls who can be luxu- 
riantly happy in their owm minds and with one another, 
without that commonly necessary appendage to female 

bliss, A LOVER. 

Charlotte and you are just two favourite resting 
places for my soul in her wanderings through the 
weary, thorny wilderness of this world — God knows I 
am ill-fitted for the struggle : I glory in being a Poet, 
and I want to be thought a wise man — I would fondly 
be generous, and I wish to be rich. After all, I am 
afraid I am a lost subject. ^' Some folk hae a hantle o' 
fauts, an' I 'mbuta ne'er-do-weel." 

Afternoon. — -To close the melancholy reflections at 
the end of last sheet, I shall just add a piece of devo- 
tion commonly known in Carrick, by the title of the 
''• Wabster's grace." 

" Some say we're thieves, and e'en sae are We, 
** Some say we lie, and e'en sae do we ! 
** Gudc forg-ie us, and I hope sae will he ! 

'•: — —Up :md to your looms, lads/' 

D 2 



50 



Edinburgh^ Dec. 12, 1787. 

I AM here under the care of a surgeon, with a 
bruised limb extended on a cushion; and the tints of 
my mind vying with the livid horror preceding a mid- 
night thunder-storm. A drunken coachman was the 
cause of the first, and incomparably the lightest evil ; 
misfortune, bodily constitution, hell and myself, have 
formed a "Quadruple Alliance" to guarantee the 
other. I got my fall on Saturday, and am getting slow- 
ly better. 

I have taken tooth and nail to the bible, and am got 
through the five books of Moses, and halfway in Jo- 
shua. It is really a glorious book. I sent for my book- 
binder to-day, and ordered him to get me an octavo 
bible in sheets, the best paper and print in town ; and 
bind it with all the elegance of his craft. 

I would give my best song to my worst enemy, I 
mean the merit of making it, to have you and Char- 
lotte by me. You are angelic creatures, and would 
pour oil and wine into my wounded spirit. 

I inclose you a proof copy of the " Banks of the 
Devon," which present with my best wishes to Char- 
lotte. The " Ochel-hills," you shall probably have next 
week for yourself. None of your fine speeches ! 



Edinburgh^ D(k. 19, 1787. 

I BEGIN this letter in answer to yours of the 
1 7th current, which is not yet cold since I read it. 
The atmosphere of my soul is vastly clearer than when 
I wrote you last. For the first time, yesterday I cross- 
ed the room on crutches. It would do your heart 
good to see my hardship, not on my floe tic j but on my 
oaken siilis; throwing my best leg wdth an air! and 
with as much hilarity in my gait and countenance, as 
rt May frog leaping across the newly harrowed ridge^. 



31 

enjoying the fragrance of the refreshed earth after the 
long-expected shawer ! 

* * * * 

I can't say I am altogether at my ease when I see 
any where in my path, that metigre, squalid, famine- 
faced spectre, poverty ; attended as he always is, by 
iron-fisted oppression, and leering contempt ; but I 
have sturdily withstood his buffetings many a hard-la- 
boured day already, and still my motto is — I dare ! 
My worst enemy is Moimeme. I lie so miserably open 
to the inroads and incursions of a mischievous, light- 
armed, well-mounted banditti, under the banners of 
imagination, whim, caprice, and passion; and the 
heavy armed veteran regulars of wisdom, prudence, 
and fore-thought, move so very, very slow, that I am 
almost in a perpetual state of warfare, and alas ! fre- 
quent defeat. There are just two creatures that I 
would envy, a horse in his wild state traversing the 
forests of Asia, or an oyster on some of the desart 
shores of Europe. The one has not a wish without 
enjoyment, the other has neither wish nor fear. 



Edinburgh^ March 14, 1788. 

I KNOW, my ever dear friend, that you will 
be pleased with the news when I tell you, I have at 
last taken a lease of a farm. Yesternight 1 completed 
a bargain with Mr. Miller, of Dalswinton, for the farm 
of Ellisland, on the banks of the Nith, between five 
and six miles above Dumfries. I begin at Whitsunday 
to build a house, drive lime, kc. and heaven be my 
help ! for it will take a strong effort to bring my mind 
into the routine of business. I have discharged all the 
army of my former pursuits, fancies and pleasures; a 
motley host I and have literally and strictly retained 
only the ideas of a few friends, which I have incorpo- 
rated into a liie-guard. I trust in Dr. Johnson's obsf^n- 



32 

vation, ^' Where much is attempted, somethmg is 
done." Firmness both in sufferance and exertion^ is a 
character I would wish to be thought to possess ; and 
have always despised the whining yelp of complaint, 
and the cowardly, feeblp resolve. 

* * * * 

Poor Miss K. is ailing a good deal this winter, and 
begged me to remember her to you the first time I 
wrote you. Surely woman, amiable woman, is often 
made in vain ! Too delicately formed for the rougher 
pursuits of ambition; too noble for the dirt of avarice, 
and even too gentle for the rage of pleasure : formed 
indeed for and highly susceptible of enjoyment and 
rapture; but that enjoyment, alasl almost wholly at 
the mercy of the caprice, malevolence, stwpidity, or 
wickedness of an animal at all times comparatively 
unfeeling, and often brutal. 



Mauchline^ 7th Aprils 1788. 

I AM indebted to you and Miss Nimmo for let- 
ting me know Miss Kennedy. Strange ! how apt we 
are to indulge prejudices in our judgments of one 
another! Even I, who pique myself on my skill in mark- 
ing characters ; because 1 am too proud of my charac- ' 
ter as a man, to be dazzled in my judgment for glaring 
wealth; and too proud of my situation as a poor man 
to be biassed against scjualid poverty; I was unac- 
quainted with Miss K.'s very uncommon worth. 

I am going on a good deal progressive in mon grand 
Ht-i the sober science of life. I have lately made some 
sacrifices for which, wxre I viva voce with you to paint 
the situation and recount the circumstances, you 
would applaud me. 



35 



jVo daic 



NOW for that wayward, unfortunate thing, my- 
self. I have broke measures with * * * and last 
week I wrote him a frosty, keen letter. He replied in 
terms of chastisement, and promised me upon his 
honour that I should have the account on Monday; but 
this is Tuesday, and yet I have not heard a word from 
him. God have mercy on me! a poor d-mned, incau- 
tious, duped, unfortunate fool ! The sport, the misera- 
ble victim, of rebellious pride; hypochondriac imagi- 
nation, agonizing sensibility, and bedlam passions ! 

" I wish that I were dead^ hut I^m no like to die l^^ I 
had lately "a hairbreadth 'scape in th' imminent 
deadly breach'' of love too. Thank my stars I got off 
heart-whole, " waur fieyd than hurt." — Interruption. 

I have this moment got a hint * * * * 

* * * * I fear I am something like — un- 

done — but I hope for the best. Come stubborn pride 
and unshrinking resolution ! accompany me through 
this, to me, miserable world! You must not desert 
me ! Your friendship I think I can count on, though I 
should date my letters from a marching regiment. 
Early in life, and all my life, I reckoned on a recruit- 
ing drum as my forlorn hope. Seriously though, life 
at present presents me with but a melancholy path : but 
— my limb wil soon be sound, and I shall struggle on. 



Edinburgh^ Sunday. 

TO-MORROW, my dear madam, I leave Edin- 
burgh. 

* * * * 

I have altered all my plans of future life. A farm that 
I could live in, 1 could not find ; and indeed, after the 
necessary support my brother and the rest of the fa- 
mily required, I could not venture on farming in that 
style suitable to my feelings. You will condemn mc 



34 

Ibr the next step I have taken. I have entered mto the 
excise. I stay in the west about three weeks, and then 
return to Edinburgh for six weeks instructions ; after- 
wards, for I get employ instantly, 1 go ou il plait a Dieu^ 
'^^et vion Roi. I have chosen this, my dear friend, af- 
ter mature deliberation. The question is not at what 
door of fortune's palace shall we enter in; but what 
doors does she open to us? I w^as not likely to get any 
thing to do.. I wanted un biit^ which is a dangerous, an 
unhappy situation. I got this without any hanging on, 
or mortifying solicitation ; it is immediate bread, and 
though poor in comparison of the last eighteen months 
of my existence, 'tis luxury in comparison of all my 
preceding life: besides, the commissioners are some 
of them my acquaintances, and all of them my firm 
friends. 



No. XIX. 

To Miss M — N. 

Saturday JVoon^ JVb. 2, St. Jameses Sqr. 
JVetvton^ Edinburgh. 

HERE have I sat, my Dear Madam, in the stony 
attitude of perplexed study for fifteen ^^exatious mi- 
nutes, my head askew, bending over flie intended 
card; my fixed eye insensible to the very light of day 
poured around; my pendulous goose-feather, loaced 
with ink, hanging over the future letter ; all for the 
important purpose of writing a complimentary card to 
accompany your trinket. 

Compliments is such a miserable Greenland ex- 
pression ; lies at such a chilly polar distance from the 
torrid zone of my constitution, that I cannot, for the 
very soul of me, use it to any person for v/hom I have 
the twentieth part of the esteem, every one mmst have 
for you who ]knows you. 



35 

As I leave town in three or four days, I can give 
myself the pleasure of calling for you only for a mi- 
nute. Tuesday evening, sometime about seven, or af- 
ter, I shall wait on you, for your farewel commands. 

The hinge of your box, I put into the hands of the 
proper Connoisseur. The broken glass, likewise, went 
under review ; but deliberative wisdom thought it would 
too much endanger the whole fabric. 

I am. Dear Madam, 

With all sincerity of Enthusiasm, 

Your very humble Servant. 



No. XX. 

To Mr. ROBERT AINSLIE, Edinburgh. 

Edinburgh^ SuJiday Mornings 
Ab-y. 23, 1787. 

I BEG, my dear Sir, you would not make any 
appointment to take us to Mr. Ainslie's to-night. On 
looking over my engagements, constitution, present 
state of my health, some little vexatious soul concerns, 
ccc. I find I can't sup abroad to night. 

I shall be in to-day till one o'clock if you have a 
leisure hour. 

You v/ill think it romantic when I tell you, that I 
find the idea of your friendship almost necessary to 
my existence. — You assume a proper length of face 
in my bitter hours of blue-devilism, and you laugh 
fully up to my highest wishes at my good things — I 
don't know upon the whole, if you are one of the first 
fellows in God's world, but you are so to me. I tell you 
this just now in the conviction that some inequalities 
in my temper and manner may perhaps sometimes 
make you suspect that 1 am not so warmly as I ough' 
10 he ^ 

Your fn ciul. 



36 

No. XXI. 
To Miss CHALMERS. 

Edinburgh^ Dec. 1787. 

MY DEAR MADAM, 

I JUST now have read yours. The poetic com- 
pliments I pay cannot be misunderstood. They are 
neither of them so particular as to point you out to 
the world at large ; and the circle of your acquaintances 
will allow all I have said. Besides 1 have complimented 
you chiefly, almost solely, on your mental charms. 
Shall 1 be plain with you ? I will ; so look to it. Per- 
sonal attractions, madam, you ha>e much above par ; 
wit, understanding, and worth, you possess in the first 
class. This is a cursed flat way of telling you these 
truths, but let me hear no more of your sheepish ti- 
midity. I know the world a little. I know what they 
will say of my poems ; by second sight I suppose ; for 
I am seldom out in my conjectures ; and you may be- 
lieve me, my dear madam, I would not run any risk of 
hurting you by an ill-judged compliment. I wish to 
show to the world, the odds between a poet's friends 
and those of simple prosemen. More for your infor- 
mation both the pieces go in. One of them, '' Where 
braving all the winter's harms," already set — the tune 
is Neil Gow's Lamentation for Abercarny; the other 
is to be set to an old Highland air in Daniel Dow's 
" Collection of antient Scots music ;" the name is Ha 
a Chaillich air mo Dheidh. My treacherous memory has 
forgot every circumstance about ie* Incas^ only 1 think 

you mentioned them as being in C 's possession. 

I shall ask him about it. I am afraid the song of'' Some- 
body" will come too late — as I shall, for certain, leave 
town in a week for Ayrshire, and from that to Dum- 
fries, but there my hopes are slender. I leave my cii- 



37 

rcclion in town^ so any thing, wherever I am, "svill recxli 
me. 

I saw your's to , it is not too severe, nor did 

lie take it amiss. .On the contrary, like a whipt spa- 
niel, he talks of being with you in the Christmas days. 
Mr. has given him the invitation, and he is de- 
termined to acceptor it. O selfishness! he owns in his 
sober moments, that from his ovni volatility of incli- 
nation, the circumstances in which he is situated, and 
his knowledge of his father's disposition, — the whole 
affair is chimerical — yet he ivill gratify an idle fienchant 
at the enormous, cruel expencc of perhaps ruining the 
peace of the very woman for whom he professes the 
generous passion of love 1 He is a gentleman in his 
mind and manners. Tant pis 1 — He is a volatile school- 
boy : The heir of a man's fortune^ who well knows the 
value of two times two I 

Perdition seize them and their fortunes, before they 
should make the amiable, the lovely the de- 
rided object of their purse-proud contempt. 

I am doubly happy to hear of Mrs. 's reco- 
very, because I really thought all was over with h^er 
There are days of pleasure yet awaiting her. 

** As I cam in by GlenaY) 

**I met with an aged woman; 

" She bade me chear up my lieaii:, 

** For the best o' my davs M*a"s comin.*' 



38 



No. XXII. 
to Mr. MORISON,* Wright, Muuchline. 



Ellidand^ Jan. 22, 1788. 



MY DEAR SIR, 



NECESSITY obliges me to go into my neAv 
house, even before it be plaistered. I will inhabit the 
one end until the other is finished. About three weeks 
more, I think, wdll at farthest be iivy time, beyond 
which 1 cannot stay in this present house. If ever you 
Avished to deserve the blessing of him that was ready 
to perish ; if ever you were in a situation that a little 
kindness would have rescued you from many evils; if 
ever you hope to find rest in future states of. untried 
being; — get these matters of mine ready. My ser- 
vant will be out in the beginning of next week for the 
clock. My compliments to Mrs. Morison. 

I am, after all my tribulation.* 

Dear Sir., 

Yours. 



* This article refers to chairs, and other articles of furni,- 
\ure wliich the Poet had ordered. 



39 



No. XXIII. 

To Mr. JAMES SMITH, Avon Printfield, 
Linlithgow. 

' "" Mauc/ilhic^ J/in'l 2S, 17HB. 

BEWARE of your Strasburgh, my good Sir? 
Look on this as the opening of a correspondence like 
the opening of a twenty-four gun battery! 

There is no understanding a man properly, without 
knowing something of his previous ideas (that is to 
say, if the man has any ideas ; for I know many who in 
the animal-muster, pass for men, that are the" scanty 
masters of only one idea on any given subject, and by 
far the greatest part of your acquaintances and mine 
can barely boast of ideas,. 1.25 — 1.5 — 1.75, or som.e 
such fractional matter) so to let you a little into the 
secrets of my pericranium, there is, you must know, 
a certain clean-limbed, hraidsome, bewitching young 
hussy of your acquaintance, to whom I have lately 
and privately given a matrimonial title to my corpus. 

" Bode a robe and wear it," 

Says the wise old Scots adage ! I hate to presage ill- 
luck ; and as my girl has been doubly kinder to me 
than even the best of women usually are to their part- 
ners of our sex, in similar_circumstances, I reckon on 
twelve times a brace of children against I celebrate my 
twelfth wedding day: these twenty-four will give me 
twenty-four gossippine>;s, twenty-four christenings, (I 
mean one equal to two) and I hope, by the blessing of 
the God of my fathers, to make them twenty-four du- 
tiful children to their parents, twenty-four useful Mem- 
bers of Society, and twenty-four approven servants of 
their God ! * * * ^ u l^ight 's heartsomc," quo' 
the wife when she was stealing sheep. You see what 
a lamp I have hung* up to lighten your paths, when 
you are idle enough to explore the combinations and 



40 

relations of my ideas. 'Tis now as plain as a pikc-stafVi . 
why a twenty-four gun battery was a metaphor I could 
readily employ. 

Now for business. — I intend to present Mrs. Burns 
with a printed shawl, an article of which 1 dare say 
you have variety : 'tis my first present to her since I 
have irrevocably called her mine, and I have a kind of 
whimsical wish to get her the said first present from 
an old and much valued friend of hers and mine, a 
trusty Trojan^ on whose friendship I count myself pos- 
sessed of a life-rent lease. 

Look on this letter as a ^'beginning of sorrows ;*' 
I '11 write you till your eyes ache with reading non- 
sense. 

Mrs. Burns ('tis only her private designation) begj^ 
her best compliments to you. 



No. XXIV. 
To Mr. ROBERT AINSLIE, 

Mauchline^ May 26, 1788. 

WY DEAR FRIEND, 

I AM two kind letters in your debt, but I have 
been from home, and horridly busy buying and pre- 
paring for my farming business ; over and above the 
plague of my Excise instructions, which this week 
will finish. 

As I flatter my wishes that I foresee many future 
years correspondence between us, 'tis foolish to talk 
of excusing dull epistles : a dull letter may be a very 
kind one. I have the pleasure to tell you that I have 
been extremely fortunate in all my buyings and bar- 



41 

gainings hitherto; Mrs. Burns not excepted; which 
title 1 now avow to the world. I am truly pleased with 
this last affair: it has indeed added to my anxieties for 
futurity, but it has given a stability to my mind and re- 
solutions, unknown before; and the poor girl has the 
most sacred enthusiasm of attachnjent to me, and has 
iiot a wish but to gratify my every idea of her deport- 
ment.* 

1 am interrupted. 

Fare vv el 1 my dear Sir. 



* A passage has been omitted in a letter to Mrs. Dunlop. 
(.8vo. Edition, Vol. II, No. LIII.) This passage places Mrs. 
Burns in so interesting a point of view that it must be pre- 
served. 

** To jealousy or infidelity I am an equal stranger: My pre- 
servative from the first is a most thorough consciousness of 
her sentiments of honor, and her attachment to me ; my an- 
tidote against the last, is my long and deep-rooted affection 
for her. 

In housewife matters, of aptness to learn and activity to ex- 
ecute she is eminently m.i stress : and during my absence in 
Nithsdale, she is regularly and constantly apprentice to my 
mother and sisters in their dairy and other rural business. 

The Muses must not be offended when T tell them, the con- 
cerns of my wife and family will, in m}- mind, always take the 
pas; but I assure them their ladyships will ever come next 
in place. 

You are right that a bachelor state woidd have insured me 
m.ore friends ; but, from a cause you will easily guess, con* 
scious peace in the enjoyment of my own mind, and iinmis-- 
trusting confidence in approaching my God, would seldom^ 
-have been of the number * * * *.'" 



Y.M 



42 

No. XXV. 
TO THE SAME. 

Ellisland^ June 14, 1788. 

THIS is now the third day, my dearest Sir, that 
1 have sojourned in these regions; and during these 
tiiree days you have occupied more of my thoughts 
than in three weeks preceding: In Ayrshire I have 
several -variations of friendship's compass, here it 
points invariably to the pole. — My farm gives me a 
good many uncouth cares and anxieties, but I hate the 
language of complaint. Job, orfeome one of his friends^ 
says well — '* Why should a living man complain ?'* 

I have lately been much mortified with contemplating 
an unlucky imperfection in the very framing and con- 
struction of my soul; namely, a blundering inaccuracy 
of her olfactory organs in hitting the scent of craft or 
design in my fellow creatures. I do not mean any com- 
friimentto my ingenuousness, or to hint that the defect 
is in consequence of the unsuspicious simplicity of con- 
iseious truth and honour : I take it to be, in some way 
or other, an imperfection in the mental sight; or, me- 
taphor apart, some modification of dulness. In two or 
three small instances lately, I have been most shame- 
iully out. 

I have all along, hitherto, in the warfare of life, been 
bred to arms among the light-horse — the piquet-guards 
of fancy; a kind of Hussars and Highlanders of the 
Brain ; but I am firmly resolved to sell out of these 
giddy battalions, who have no ideas of a battle but 
fighting the foe, or of a siege but storming the tov/n. 
Cost what it will, I am determined to buy in among 
the grave squadrons of heavy-armed thought, or the 
artillery corps of plodding contrivance. 

What books are you reading, or what is the subject 



43 

of your thoughts, besides the great studies of your 
profession ? You said something about Religion in your 
last. I don't exactly remember what it was, as the let- 
ter is in Ayrshire ; but 1 thought it not only prettily 
said, but nobly thought. You will make a noble fellow 
if once you were married. I make no reservation of 
your being w<f //-married: You have so much sense, 
and knowledge of human nature, that though you may 
not realize perhaps the ideas of romance, yet you v/ill 
never be ill-married. 

Were it not for the terrors of my ticklish situation 
respecting provision for a family of children, I am de- 
cidedly of opinion that the step I have taken is vastly 
for my happiness. As it is, I look to the excise scheme 
as a certainty of maintenance ; a maintenance, luxury 
to whiit either Mrs. Burns or I were born to. 

Adieu. 



No. XXVL 
TO THE SAME. 

Ellislands June 30, 1788. 

MY DEMI SIR, 

I JUST now received your brief epistle ; and to 
take vengeance on your laziness, I have, you see, 
taken a long sheet of writing paper, and have begun 
at the top of the page, intending to scribble on the 
very last corner. 

I am vext at that affair of the * * * but dare not 
enlarge on the subject until you send me your direc- 
tion, as I suppose that will be altered on your late mas- 
ter and friend's death. I am concerned for the old fel- 
tow^s exit, only as 1 fear it may be to your disadvantage 



44 

in any respect— for an old man's dying, except he have 
been a very benevolent character, or in some particu- 
lar situation of life, that the welfare of the poor or the 
helpless depended on him, I think it an event of the 
most trifling' moment to the world. Man is naturally 
a kind benevolent animal, but he is dropt into such a 
needy situation here in this vexatious world, and has 
such a whoreson, hungry, growling, multiplying pack 
of necessities, appetites, passions, and desires about him, 
ready to devour him for want of other food ; that in fact 
he must lay aside his cares for others that he may look 
properly to himself.* You have been imposed upon in* 

paying Mr. M for the profile of a Mr. H. I did 

not mention it in my letter to you, nor did 1 ever give 

Mr. M any such order. 1 have no objection to 

lose the money, but I will not have any such profile in 
my possession. 

I desired the carrier to pay you, but as I mentioned 
only I5s. to him, I will rather enclose you a guinea 
note. I have it not indeed to spare here, as I am only 
a sojourner in a strange land in this place ; but in a 
day or two I return io Mauchline, and there I have the 
bank-notes through the house, like salt permits. 

There is a great degree of folly in talking unneces- 
sarily of one's private aftairs. I have just now been in- 
terrupted by one of my new neighbours, who has made 
himself absolutely contemptible in my eyes, by his 
silly, garrulous pruriency. I know it has been a fault of 
my own too; but from this moment I abjure it as I 
would the service of heH ! Your poets, spendthrifts, 
and other fools of that kidney^ pretend, forsooth, to 
crack their jokes on prudence, but 'tis a squalid vaga- 
bond glorying in his rags. Still, imprudence respect- 
ing money matters, is much more pardonable thai> 
imprudence respecting character. I have no objection 
to prefer prodigality to avarice, in some few instances;. 



* A similar thought oceurs in a. letter to Mr, Hill, voLii'^^- 
'Jett. 95, Dr. Gurrie's Ed. 



45 

but I appeal to your observati(>n, if you have not met, 
and often met, with the same little disingenuousness, 
the same hollow-hearted insincerity, and disintegri- 
tive depravity of principle, in the hackney'd victims 
of profusion, as in the unfeeling children of parsimo- 
ny. J have every possible reverence for the much 
talked -of world beyond the grave, and I wish that 
which piety believes and virtue deserves, may be all 
matter of fact — But in things belonging to and termi- 
nating in this present scene of existence, man has se- 
rious and interesting business on hand. Whether a 
man shall shake hands with welcome in the distin- 
guished elevation of respect, or shrink from contempt 
in the abject corner of insigniiicance ; whether he 
shall wanton under the tropic of plenty, at least enjoy 
himself in the comfortable latitudes of easy conveni- 
ance, or starve in the arctic circle of dreary poverty ; 
whether he shall rise in the manly consciousness of a 
self-approving mind, or sink beneath a galling load of 
regret and remorse — these arc alternatives of the last 
moment. 

You see how 1 preach. You used occasionally to 
sermonize too ; I wish you would, in charity, favour 
me with a sheet full in your own way. I admire the 
close of a letter Lord Bolingbroke writes Dean Swift, 
" Adieu dear Swift! with all thy faults I love thee en 
"tirely: make an effort to love me with all mine 1 
Humble servant and all that trumpery, is now such a 
prostituted business, that honest friendship in her sin- 
cere way, must have recourse to her primitive, simple, 
— ^^farewel ! 



p» 



46 



No. XXVI I. 



To Mr. GEORGE LOCKHART, Merchant, 
Glasgow. 



Mauchline^July 18, 1/88. 



MY DEAR SIR, 



I AM just going for Nithsdale, else I would 
certainly have transcribed some of my rhyming things 
for you. The Miss Bailies I have seen in Edinburgh. 
^« Fair and lovely are thy works, Lord God Almighty ! 
Who would not praise Thee for these Thy gifts in 
Thy goodness to the sons of men !" It needed not 
your fine ta^te to admire them. I declare, pne day I 
had the honour of dining at Mr. Bailie's, I was almost 
in the predicament of the children of Israel, when 
they could not look on Moses's face for the glory that 
shone in it when he descended from Mount Sinai.* 

I did once write a poetic address from the falls of 
Bruar to his Grace of Athole, when I was in the High- 
lands. When you return to Scotland let me know, and 
I will send such of my pieces as please mysfelf best. 

I return to Mauchiine in about ten days. 

My compliments to Mr. Purden. I am in truth, but 
at present in haste, 

Yours sincerely. 



* One of Burns's remarks wlien he first came to Edinburg-h, 
was, that between the men of rustic life and the polite world 
lie observed little difference — that in the former, though un- 
polished by fashion, and unenlightened by science,, he had 
found much observation and much intelligence, — but a re- 
fined and accomplished woman was a being almost new to 
him^ and of which he had formed but a very inadequate idea. 



47 

No. XXVIII. 

To Mr. BEUGO, Engraver, Edinburgh. 

Ellisland^ Se/it, 9^ 1788. 

MY DEAR SIR, 

THERE is not in Edinburgh above the number 
of the graces whose letters would have given me so 
much pleasure as yours of the 3d inPitant, which only- 
reached me yesternight. 

I am here on my farm, busy with my harvest ; but 
for all that most pleasurable part of life called social 
COMMUNICATION, 1 am here at the very elbow of ex- 
istence. The only things that are to be found in this 
country in any degree of perfection, are stupidity and 
canting. Prose, they only know in graces, prayers, Sec. 
and the value of these they estimate as they do their 
plaiding webs— by the ell! As for the muses, they 
have as much an idea of a rhinoceros as of a poet. 
Eor my old capricious but good-natured hussy of a 
muse— . 

*By banks of Xitli I sat and wept 

When Coila I thoug-ht on. 
In midst thereof I hung my harp 
The Willow trees upon. 

1 am generally about half my time in Ayrshire with 
my '' darling Jean," and then I, at lucid intervah^ throw 
my horny list across my be-cobwebbed lyre, much in 
the same manner as an old wife throws her hand across 
tlie spokes of her spinning wheel. 

I will send you '' The Fortunate Shepherdess" as 
soon as I return to Ayrshire, for there I keep it with 
«ther precious treasure. I shall sewd it by a careful 
hand, as I would not for any thing it should be mislaid 
or lost. I do not wish to serve you from any benevu- 
Jcncc, or other grave Christian virtue; 'lis purely a 



I 



48 

selfish gratification of my own feelings whenever I 
think of you. 

* * * 

If your better functions would give you leisure to 
write me I should be extremely happy; that is to say, 
if you neither keep nor look for a regular correspon- 
dence. I hate the idea of being obliged to write a let- 
ter. I sometimes write a friend twice a week, at other 
times once a quarter. 

I am exceedingly pleased with your fancy in mak- 
ing the author you mention place a map of Iceland in- 
stead of his portrait before his works: 'Twas a glo- 
rious idea. 

Could yoii conveniently do me one thing — When- 
ever you finish any head I could like to have a proof 
copy of it. I might tell you a long story about your 
fine genius; but as what every body knows cannot 
have escaped you, I shall not say one syllabic about it. 



No. XXIX. 

To Miss CHALMERS, Edinburgh. 

Ellisland^ near Duivfries^ Sefit. 16, 1788. 

WHERE are you? and how are you? and is 
Lady M^Kenzie recovering her health? for I have had 
but one solitary letter from you. I will not think you 
have forgot me. Madam ; and for my part — 

** When thee Jerusalem I forget, 
" Skill pai*t from my right hand !" 

" My heart is not of that rock, nor my soul careless 
as that sea.'* I do not make my progress among man- 
kind as a bowl does among its fellows — -rolling through 
the crowd without bearing away any mark or impres- 
.sion, except where they hit in hostile collision. 

I am here, driven in with my harvest-folks by bacT 



49 

weather; and as you and your sister once did me the 
honour of interesting yourselves much a I'egard de 
77101, I sit down to beg the continuation of your good- 
ness.— I can truly say that, all the exterior of life apart. 
I never saw two, whose esteem flattered the nobler 
feelings of my soul — I will not say, more, but, so much 
as Lady M'Kenzie and Miss Chalmers. When I think 
of you — hearts the best, minds the noblest, of human 
kind — unfortunate, even in the shades of life — when 
I think I have met with you, and have lived more of 
real life with you in eight days, than I can do with al- 
most any body I meet with in eight years — when I 
think on the improbability of meeting you in this 
world again — I could sit down and cry like a child I — 
If ever you honoured me with a place in your esteem, 
I trust 1 can now plead more desert. — I am secure 
against that crushing grip of iron poverty, w hich, alas ! 
is less or more fatal to the native worth and purity of, 
1 fear, the noblest souls; and a late, important step in 
my life has kindly taken me out of the w^ay of those 
ungrateful iniquities, which, however overlooked in 
fashionable license, or varnished in fashionable phrase, 
are indeed but lighter and deeper shades of vil- 
lainy. 

Shortly after my last return to Ayrshire, I married 
^' my Jean." This was not in consequence of the at- 
tachment of romance perhaps ; but I had a long and 
niuch-loved fellow creature's happiness or misery in 
my determination, and I durst not trifle with so im- 
portant a deposit. Nor have I any cause to repent it. 
If 1 have not got polite tattle, modish manners, and 
fashionable dress, I am not sickened and disgusted 
with the multiform curse of boarding-school afl'ecta- 
tion ; and I have got the handsomest figure, the sweet- 
est temper, the soundest constitution, and the kindest 
heart in the county. Mrs. Ijurns believes, as firmly as 
her creed, that I am ie fiiia- del es/irit^et le plua honnetc 
hoimne in the universe ; although she scarcely ever in 
her life, except the Scriptures of the Old and New 
rf estamcnt, and the Psalms of David in metre, spcnr 

F 



50 

five minutes together on either prose or verse. — I 
must except also from this last, a certain late publica- 
tion of Scots poems, which she has perused very de- 
voutly ; and ail the ballads in the country, as she has 
(O the partial lover ! you will cry) the finest " wood- 
note wild" I ever heard. — I am the more particular iii 
this lady's character, as I know she will henceforth have 
the honor of a share in your best wishes. She is still 
at Mauchline, as I am building my house ; for this ho- 
vel that I shelter in, while occasionally here, is per- 
vious to every blast that blows, and every shower that 
falls; and I am only preserved from being chilled to 
death, by being suffocated with smoke. I do not find 
my farm that pennyworth I was taught to expect, but 
I believe, in time, it may be a saving bargain. You will 
be pleased to hear that I have laid aside idle cclat^ and 
bind every day after my reapers. 

To save me from that horrid situation of at any 
time going down, in a losing bargain of a farm, to mi- 
sery, I have taken my excise instructions, and have 
my commission in my pocket for any emergency of 
fortune. If I could set all before your view, whatever • 
disrespect you in common with^the world, have for' 
this business, I know you would approve of my idea. 

I w411 make no apology, dear madam, for this ego- 
tistic detail : I know you and your sister will be inte- 
rested in every circumstance of it. What signify the 
silly, idle gewgaws of wealth, or the ideal trumpery 
of greatness! When fellow partakers of the same na- 
ture fear the same God, have the same benevolence of 
heart, the same nobleness of soul, the same detestation 
at every thing dishonest, and the same scorn at every 
thing unworthy — if they are not in the dcpendance of 
absolute beggary, in the name of common sense are 
they not equals? And if the bias, the instinctive bias 
of their souls run the same way, why may they not be 

FRIENDS? 

When I may have an opportunity of sending you 
this. Heaven only knows. Shenstone says, " When one 
is confined idle within doors by bad v» eatlier; the best 



51 

antidote against eimuiis^ to read the letters of, or write 
to one's friends;" in that case then, if the weather 
continues thus, I may scrawl you half a quire. 

I very lately, to wit, since harvest began, wrote a 
poem, not in imitation, but in the manner of Pope's 
Moral Epistles. It is only a short essay, just to try the 
strength of my Muse's pinion in that way. I will send 
you a copy of it, when once I have heard from you. 1 
have likewise been laying the foundation of some pretty 
large Poetic works: how the superstructure will come 
on I leave to that great maker and marrer of projects 
— TIME. Johnson's collection of Scots songs is going 
on in the third volume; and of consequence finds me 
a consumpt for a great deal of idle metre. — One of 
the most tolerable things I have done in that way, is, 
two stanzas that I made to an air, a musical gentle- 
man* of my acquaintance composed for the anniver- 
sary of his wedding-day, which happens on the seventh 
of November. Take it as follows: 

The day returns — my bosom burns. 
The blissful day we twa did meet, &c. 

Dr. Currle's Ed. Vol. 3, p. 289. 

I shall give over this letter for shame. If I should 
be seized with a scribbling fit, before this goes away, 
I shall make it another letter; and then you may al- 
low your patience a week's respite between the two. 
I have not room for more than the old, kind, hearty, 



To make some amends, 772^5 cheres JMcsdames^ for 
dragging you on to this second sheet; and to relieve a 
little the tiresomeness of my unstudied and uncorrecti- 
ble prose, I shall transcribe you some of my late po- 
etic bagatelles; though I have these eight or ten 
months, done very little that way. One day," in a Her 
mitage on the Banks of Nith, belonging to a gentle- 



' Capt. Riddel of Glcnriddcl. 



52 



m 
liie 



m 111 my neighbourhood, ^vho is sq good as giv e 
i a key at pleasure, I wrote as follows; supposing 

myself the sequestered, venerable inhabitant of the 

lonely mansion. 

Lines ^vritten in Friar's Carse Hermitage* 

I)r. Cuvvie's Ed. Vol 3,/?. 289. 



No. XXX. 
To Mrs. DUNLOP, of Dunlop. 

Mauchline^ 27th Sept. 1788. 

I HAVE received twins, dear madam, more 
than once; but scarcely ever with more pleasure than 
when I received yours of the 12th instant. To make 
myself understood; I had wrote to Mr. Graham, in- 
closing my poem addressed to him, and the same post 
W'hich favoured me v/ith yours, brought mean answer 
from him. It was dated the very day he had received 
mine .; and I am quite at a loss to say v/hether it was 
most polite or kind. 

Your criticisms, my honoured benefactrdss, are tru- 
ly the work of a friend. They are not the blasting de- 
predations of a canker-toothed, caterpillar critic ; nor 
are they the fair statement of cold impartiality, balanc- 
ing with unfeeling exactitude, the pro and con of an 
author's merits; they are the judicious observations 
of animated friendship, selecting the beauties of the 



* The poetic temperament is ever predisposed to sensa- 
tions of the "horrible and awful." Burns, in returning* from 
liis visits at Glenriddel to his farm at Ellisland, had to pass 
through a little wild wood in which stood the Hermitage. 
When the night was dark and dreary it was his custom gene- 
rally to solicit an additional parting glass to fortify his spirits 
and keep up his courage. This was related by a lady a near* 
relation of Capt. Riddle's; who had frequent opportunities 
of seeing this salutary practice exemplified, K. 



53 

piece*. I have just arrived from Nithsdale, and willbe 
here a fortnight. I was on horseback this morning by- 
three o'clock; for between m.y \vife and my farm is 
just forty-six miles. As 1 jogged on in the dark, I was 
taken with a poetic fit i.s follows : 

" Mrs. V of C 's lamentation for the death 

of her son; an uncommonly promising youth pi 
eighteen or nineteen years of age." 

Her/f follow the verses, entitled, '^ A Mother's lament 
for the loss of her So?i.'' 

Dr. Currie's Ed. Vol. 4, p. 383. 

You will not send me your poetic rambles, but, you 
see I am no niggard of-mine. iam sure your impromp- 
tu's give me double pleasure ; wiiat falls from your per, 
can neither be unenlertaining in itself, noi* indifferent 
to me. 



* From a letter which is printed in Dr. Carrie's collection, 
it appears that Burns entertained no g-reat respect for what 
may be styled technical criticism. He loved the man v.iio 
judg'cd of poetical compositions from the heart — but looked 
with an evil eye upon those who decided by the cold decisions 
of the head. This is evinced by the following anecdote. 

At a private breakfast, in a literary circle at Edinburgh, to 
which he was invited, the conversation turned on the poetical 
merit and pathos of Gray's Elegy, a poem of which he was 
enthusiastically fond. A clergyman present, remarkable for 
his love of paradox and for his eccentric notions on every 
subject, distinguished himself by an injudicious and ill-timed 
attack on tliis exqiiisite poem, which Burns, with a generous 
warmth for the reputation of Gray, manfully defended. As 
this gentleman's remarks were rather general than specific, 
.Burns urged him to bring forward the passages w}iich he 
thought exceptionable. He made several attempts to quote 
the poem, but always in a blimdering inaccurate manner. 
Burns bore all this for a considerable time with his usual 
good nature and forbearance; till, at length, goaded by the 
fastidious criticisms and wretched quib!)lings of his opponent, 
he roused himself, and with an eye flashir.'g contempt and in- 
dignation, and with great vehemence of gesticulation, he thus 
addressed the old critic. " Sir, — I now perceive a man ma}- 
*»be an excellent judge of poetry bv s-^uare ami rule, and after 
*• all,— be a d d bloekhead !" ' E- 

F 2 



54 

The one fault you found, is just ; but I cannot please 
myself in an emendation. 

What a life of solicitude is the life of a parent ! You 
interested me much in your young couple. 

I would not take my folio paper for this ^pistle, and 
now I repent it. I am so jaded with my dirty long; 
journey that I was afraid to drawl into the essence of 
dulness with any thing longer than a quarto, and so I 
must leave out another rhyme of this morning's ma- 
nufacture. 

I will pay the sapientipotent George most cheerful- 
ly, to hear from you ere 1 leave Ayrshire. 



No. XXXI. 

To Mr. JAMES JOHNSON, Engraver, 
Edinburgh. 

Mauchlinc^ J^'ov. 15, 1788. 

MY DEAR «IR, 

I HAVE sent you two more songs. — If you 
liave got any tunes, or any thing to correct, please send 
them by return of the carrier. 

I can easily see, my dear friend, that you will very 
probably have four volumes. Perhaps you may not 
find your account lucratively^ in this business; but you 
are a patriot for the music of your country ; and I am 
certain, posterity will look on themselves as highly 
indebted to your public spirit. Be not in a hurry; let 
us go on correctly; and your name shall be immortal. 

I am preparing a flaming preface for your third vo- 
lume. I see every day, new musical publications ad- 
vertised; but what are they? Gaudy, hunted butter- 
flies of a day, and then vanish for ever : but your work 
will outlive the momentary neglect^ ofidle fashion^ and 
defv the teeth of time. 



55 

Have you never h. fair goddess that leads you a wild- 
goose chase of amorous devotion? Let me know a few 
of her qualities, such as, whether she be rather black, 
or fair; plump, or thin; short, or tall ; &c. and chuse 
your air, and I shall task my Muse to celebrate her. 



No. XXXII. 
To Dr. BLACKLOCK. 

Alauchliiic^ .Yov* 15^ 1788. 

REV. AND DEAR SIR, 

AS I hear nothing of your motions but that you 
are, or were, out of towai, I do not know where this 
may find you, or whether it will find you at all. I 
wrote you a long letter, dated from the land of matri- 
mony, in June ; but either it had not found you, or, 
what I dread more, it found you or Mrs. Blacklock in 
too precarious a state of health and spirits, to take no- 
tice of an idle packet. 

I have done many little things for Johnson, since I 
had the pleasure of seeing you ; and I have finished 
one piece, in the way of Pope's Moral Efiistles ; but 
from your silence, I have every thing to fear, so I have 
only sent you two melancholy things, which I tremble 
lest they should too well suit the tone of your present 
feelings. 

In a fortnight I move, bag and baggage, to Niths- 
dale : till then, my direction is at tins place; after thai 
period, it will be at EUisland, near Dumfries. It would 
extremely oblige me, were it but half a line, to let me 
know how you are, and where you are. — C'an I be in- 
different to the fate of a man, to whom I owe so much r 
A rflan whom I not only esteem but venerate.* 



56 

My wannest good wishes and most respectful com 
pliments to Mrs. Blacklock, and Miss Johnson, if she 
is with you. 

1 cannot conchKlc without telling you that I am 
more and more pleased with the step I took respect- 
ing "my Jean." — Two things, from my happy expe- 
rience, I set down as apothegms in life. A wife's 
head is immaterial, compared with her heart — and — 
" Virtue's (for wisdom what poet pretends to it) ways 
are w^ays of pleasantness, and her paths are peace. 

Adieu I 

* * * * 

Here follow " The moilier^s lament for the loss of her 
son^" and the song beginning, " yVic lazy mint hangs 
from the brow of the hill^ 

Br Currie's Ed. Vol 4, p. 290. 



* Gratefully alluding" to the Doctor's iotroduction of him to 
the literary circles of Edinburgh. — " There was perhaps, ne- 
** ver one among" mankind," says Heron, in a spirited memoir 
of our Bard, inserted in the Edinburgh Magazine, " whom 
" you might more truly have called an .higel upon Earth, than 
" Dr. Blacklock: he was guileless and innocent as a child, yet 
"endowed with manly sagacity and penetration; his heart 
•' was a perpetual spring of overflowing benignity ; his feel- 
<* ings were all trembhngly alive to the sense of the sublime^ 
**the beavitiful, the tender, the pious, the virtuous: — Poetry 
" was to him the dear solace of perpetual blindness ; cheer- 
** fulness, even to gaiety, was, notwithstanding that irremedi- 
" able misfortune, long the predominant colour of his mind : 
" In his latter years, when the gloom might otherwise have 
«* thickened around him, hope, faith, devotion the m^ost fer- 
" vent and sublime, exalted his mind to Heaven, and made 
" him maintain his wonted cheerfulness in the expectation pf 
>« a speedy dissolution." — 

In the beginning of the winter of 1786-8r, Burns came to 
Edinburgh : By Dr. B. he was received with the most flatter- 
ing kindness, and was earnestly introduced to every person 
of taste and generosity among the good old man's friends. Jt 
was little Blacklock had in his power to do for a brother 
poet — but that little he didAvith a fond alacrity, and with a 
modest grace. .K. 



57 

No. XXXIII. 
To Mr. ROBERT AINSLIE. 

Ellisland^ Jan, 6, 1789, 

MANY happy returns of the season to you, my 
dear Sir ! May you be comparatively happy up to 
your comparative worth among the sons of men ; 
which wish would, I am sure, make you one of the 
most blest of the human race. 

I do not know if passing a " Writer to the signet" 
be a trial of scientific merit, or a mere business of 
friends and interest. However it be, let me quote 
you my two favourite passages, w^hich though I have 
repeated them ten thousand times, still they rouse my 
manhood and steel my resolution like inspiration. 



. On Reason build resolve. 



That column of true majesty in man. 

YouNG- 

Hear, Alfred, hero of the state. 

Thy g*enius heaven's high will declare; 

The triumph of the truly gi-eat 

Is never, never to despair! 

Is never to despair ! 

Masq^ue of Alfred, 

I grant you enter the lists of life, to struggle for 
bread, business, notice, and distinction, in common 
with hundreds. — But who are they ? Men, like your- 
self, and of tliat aggregate body, your compeers, seven 
tenths of them come short of your advantages natural 
and accidental ; while two of those that remain either 
neglect their parts, as flowers blooming in a desart, or 
mis-spend their strength, like a bull goring a bramblr 
bush. 

But to change the theme : I am still catering for 
Johnson's publication ; and among others, I have 
brushed up the following old favorite song a little, 



58 

Avith a view to your worship. I have only altered u 
word here and there ; but if you like the humor of itj. 
we shall think of a stanza or two to add to it. 



No. XXXIV. 

To Mr. JAMES HAMILTON, 

Grocer, Glasgow. 

Ellhlaiid^ May 23, 1 7 8-9 , 

DEAR SIR, 

I SEND you by John Glover, Carrier, the above 
account for Mr. TurnbuU, as 1 suppose you know his 
address. 

I would fain offer, vc\y dear Sir, a word of sympa- 
thy with your misfortunes ; but it is a tender string, 
and 1 know not how to touch it. It is easy to flourish 
a set of high-flown sentiments on the subject that 
would give great satisfaction to — a breast quite at 
ease; but as one observes, who was very seldom mis- 
taken in the theory of life, <' The heart knoweth its 
" own sorrows, and a stranger intermeddleth not there- 
^'with." 

Among some distressful emergencies that I have 
.experienced in life, I ever laid this down as my foun- 
dation of comfort — That he who has lived the life of an 
honest many has by no means lived in vain I 

With every wish for your welfare and future suc- 
cess, 

I am, my dear Sir, 

Sincerely yours^ 



59 

No. XXXV. 

To WILLIAM CREECH, Esq. 

ElUdand^ May 30, 1789. 



SIR, 



I HAD intended to have troubled you with a 
long letter, but at present the delightlful sensations of 
an omnipotent Toothach so engross all my inner man; 
as to put it out of my power even to write nonsense. 
— However, as in duty bound, I approach my Book- 
seller with an offerhig in my hand — a few poetic 
clinches and a song: — To expect any other kind of 
offering from the Rhyming Tribk, would be to know 
them much less than you do. I do not pretend that 
there is much merit in these viorceaiix^ but I have 
two reasons for sending them ; primo^ they are mostly 
ill-natured, so are in unison v.ith my present feelings, 
while fifty troops of infernal spirits are driving post 
from ear to ear along my jaw-bones ; and secondly^ 
they are so short, that you cannot leave off in the mid- 
dle, and so hurt my pride in the idea that you found 
any work of mine too heavy to get through. 

I have a request to beg of you, and I not only beg 
of you, but conjure you — by all your wishes and by 
all your hopes, that the muse will spare the satiric 
wink in the moment of your foihles ; that she will 
warble the song of rapture round your hymeneal 
couch; and that she will shed on your turf the honest 
tear of elegiac gratitude! grant my request as spee- 
dily as possible. — Send me by the very iirst fly or 
coach for this place, three copies of the last edition 
of my poems ; which place to my account. 

Now, may the good things of prose, and the good 
things of verse, come among thy hands until they be 
filled wilh the good t/ung^- of thifi life I praycth 

ROBERT BURNS. 



60 

No. XXXVI. 

To Mr. ROBERT AINvSLlE. 

Ellisland^ June 8, 1789. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, 

I AM perfectly ashamed of myself when I look 
at the date of your last. It is not that I forget the 
friend of my heart and the companion of my peregri- . I 
nations; but I have been condemned to drudgery be- M 
yond sufferance, though not, thank God, beyond re- 
demption. I have had a collection of poems by a lady 
put into my hands to prepare them for the press; 
which horrid task, with sowing my corn with my own 
hand, a parcel of masons wrights, plaisterers, &c. to 
attend to, roaming on business through Ayrshire — all 
this was against me, and the very first dreadful article 
was of itself too much for me. 

13th. I have not had a moment to spare from inces- 
sant toil since the 8th. Life, my dear Sir, is a serious 
matter. You know by experience that a man's indivi- 
dual self is a good deal, but believe me, a wife and fa- 
mily of children, whenever you have the honour to be 
a husband and a father, will shew you that your pre- 
sent most anxious hours of solicitude are spent on tri- 
fles. The welfare of those who are very dear to us, 
whose only support, hope and stay we are — this, to a ge- 
nerous mind, is another sort of more important object 
of care than any concerns whatever which center mere- 
ly in the individual. On the other hand, let no young, 
unmarried, rakehelly dog among you, make a song of 
his pretended liberty and freedom from care. If the 
relations we stand in to king, country, kindred, and 
friends, be any thing but the visionary fancies of dream- 
ing metaphysicians ; if religion, virtue, magnanimity, 
generosity, humanity and justice be aught but empty 
sounds ; then the man v/ho may be said to live only^' 



61 

others, for the bciovcd, honorable female whose ten- 
der faithful embrace endears life, and for the helpless 
little innocents who are to be the men and women, the 
worshippers of his God, the subjects of his king, and 
the support, nay the very vital existence of his coun- 
try, in the ensuing age ; — compare such a man with 
any fellow^ whatever, who, w hether he bustle and push 
in business among laborers, clerks, statesmen ; or whe- 
ther he roar and rant, and drink and sing in taverns — 
a fellow over whose grave no one will breathe a sin- 
gle heigh-ho, except from the cobwxb-tie of what is 
called good fellowship — who has no vi€w nor aim but 
what terminates in himself — if there be any grovelling 
carthborn wretch of our species, a renegado to com- 
mon sense, who would fain believe that the noble 
creature, man, is no better than a sort of fungus, ge- 
nerated out of nothing, nobody knows how, and soon 
dissipating in nothing, nobody knows where ; such a 
stupid beast, -such a crawling reptile might balance the 
foregoing unexaggerated comparison, but no one else 
would have the patience. 

Forgive me, my dear Sir, for this long silence. To 
make yon amends^ I shall send you soon, and more en- 
couraging still, without any postage, one or two rhymes 
of mv later manufacture. 



62 

No. XXXVIl. 
To Capt. RIDDEL, Carse. 

Ellisland^ Oct, 16, 1789. 



SIR, 



BIG with the idea of this important day* at Fri- 
ars Carse, I have watched the elements and skies in 
the full persausion that they would announce it to the 
astonished world by some phenomena of terrific por- 
tent.' — Yesternight until a very late hour did I wait 
v/ith anxious horror, for the appearance of some Co- 
met firing half the sky ; or aerial armies of sanguina- 
ry Scandinavians, darting athwart the sparkled heavens 
rapid as the ragged lightning, and horrid as those con- 
vulsions of nature that bury nations. 

The elements, however, seem to take the matter 
very quietly ; they did not even usher in this morning 
with triple svms and a shower of blood, symbolical of 
the three potent heroes, and the mighty claret-shed of 
the day. — For me, as Thomson in his Winter says of 
the storm — I shall " Hear astonished, and astonished 
sing" 

The whistle and the man ; I sing 
The man that won the whistle, &c. 

" Here we are met, three merry boys, 
" Three merry boys I trow are we ; 

^' And mony a night wev'e merry been, 
" And mony mae we hope to be. 

" Wha first shall rise to gang awa, 

" A cuckold coward ioun is he : 
'' Wha last\ beside his chair shall fa' 

'' He is the king amang us three." 

* The day on which "the Whistle" was contended for. 
f In former Editions of these verses, the v/ord Jirst has 
been printed in this. place instead of the werd laet, E. 



63 

To leave the heights of Parnassus and come to 
the humble vale of prose. — 1 have some misgiviiii^s 
that 1 take too much upon me, when I request you lo 
get your guest, Sir Robert LoAvrie, to frank the two 
inclosed covers for me, the one of them, to Sir Wil- 
liam Cunningham, of Robertland, Bart, at Auchens- 
keith, Kilmarnock,— the other, to Mr. Allan M aster » 
ton, Writing-Master, Edinburgh. The first has a kin- 
dred claim on Sir Robert, as being a brother Baronet, 
and likewise a keen Foxite ; the other is one of the 
worthiest men in the world, and a man of real genius ; 
so, allow me to say, he has a fraternal claim on you. 
I want them franked for to-morrotv as I cannot get 
ihem for the post to-night.— -I shall send a servant 
again for them in the evening. Wishing that your 
head may be crowned with laurels to-night, and free 
from aches to-morrow^, 

I have the honour to be, 

Sir, 

Your deeply indebted humble Servant. 



No. XXXVIII. 
TO THE SAME. 

SIR, 

I WISH from my inmost soul it were in my 
power to give you a more substantial gratification and 
return for all your goodness to the poet, than trans- 
cribing a few of his idle rhymes.— However, '< an old 
song," though to a proverb an instance of insignifi • 
.cance, is generally the only coin a poet has to pay 
with. 

If my poems Avhich I have transcribed, and mean 
still to transcribe into your book, were equal to the 



64 

grateful respect and higl) esteem I bear ior the gen- 
tleman to whom I piescnt them, they would be the 
finest poems in the ianguaij;e. — As they are, they will 
at least be a testimony with what sincerity 1 have the 
honor to be, 

Sir, 
Your devoted humble Servant. 



No. XXXIX. 

To Mr. ROBERT AINSLIE. 

Ellin land ^ Mv, 1, 1789, 



MY DEAR FRIEND 



I HAD written you long ere now, could I have 
guessed where to find you, for I am sure you have more 
good sense than to waste the precious days of vacation 
time in the dirt of business and Edinburgh.-— Where- 
ever you are, God bless you, and lead you not into 
temptation, but deliver you fiom evil ! 

I do not know if 1 have informed you that I am now 
appointed to an excise division, in the middle of which 
my house and farm lie. In this I was extremely 
lucky. Without ever having been an expectant, as 
they call their journeymen excisemen, I was directly 
planted down to all intents and purposes an officer of 
excise ; there to Sourish and bring forth fruits — wor- 
thy of repentance. 

I know not how the word exciseman, or still more 
opprobious, ganger, will sound in your ears. I too 
have seen the day when my auditory nerves would 
have felt very delicately on this subject ; but a wife and 
children are things which have a wonderful power in 
blunting these kind of sensations. Fifty pounds a year 
for life; and a provision for widows and orphans, you 



65 

Will allow is no bad settlement for a fioet. For the i-^- 
nominy of the profession, 1 have the encouragement 
which I once heard a recruiting serjeant give to a nu- 
merous, if not a respectable audience, in the streets of 
Kilmarnock. — " Gentlemen, for your further and bet- 
'' ter encouragement, I can assure you that our regi- 
" ment is the most blackguard corps under the crown, 
" and consequently with us an honest fellow has the 
" surest chance for preferment." 

You need not doubt that I find several very unplea^ 
sant and disagreeable circumstances in my business; 
but I am tired with and disgusted at the language of 
complaint against the evils of life. Human existence 
in the most favourable situations does not abound with 
pleasures, and has its inconveniences and ills ; capri- 
cious foolish man mistakes these inconveniences and 
ills as if they were the peculiar property of his particu- 
lar situation ; and hence that eternal fickleness, that 
love of change, which has-ruined, and daily does ruin 
many a fine fellow, as v/ell as many a blockhead ; and 
is almost, without exception, a consttun source of dis- 
appointment and misery. 

1 long to hear from you hovr you go on — not so 
much in business as in life. Are you pretty well sa- 
tisfied with your own exertions, and tolerably at ease 
in your internal reflections? 'Tis much to be a great 
character as a lawyer, but beyond comparison more to 
be a great character as a man. That you may be both 
the one and the other is the earnest wish, and that 
you mil be both is the firm persuasion of, 

Mv dear Sir, 8.:c. 



6& 

No. XL. 

To iMr. PETER HILL, Bookseller, 
Edinburgh. 

lUUdand, Feb, 2, 1790, 

NO ! I will not say oi^eword about apologies oi 
excuses for not writing — I am a poor, rascally gauger, 
condemned to gallop at least 200 miles every wxek to 
inspect dirty ponds and yeasty barrels, and where can 
1 find time to write to, or importance to interest any 
body ? The upbraidings of my conscience, nay the up- 
braidings of my wife, have persecuted me on your ac- 
count these two or three months past. — I wish to God 
I was a great man, that my correspondence might 
throw light upon you, to let the Vv'orld see what you 
really are; and then I would make your fortune, with- 
out putting my hand in my pocket lor you, which, like 
all other great men, 1 suppose I would avoid as much 
as possible. What are you doing, and how arc^ou do- 
ing ? Have you lately seen any of my few friends ? 
What is become of the borough refokm, or how is 
the fate of my poor namesake Mademoiselle Burns 
decided? O man I but for thee and thy selfish appe- 
tites, and dishonest artifices, that beauteous form, and 
that once innocent and still ingenuous mind might 
have shone conspicuous and lovely in the faithful wife, 
and the affectionate mother; and shall the unfortu- 
nate sacrifice to thy pleasures have no claim on thy 
humanity ? 

I sav*7 lately in a Review, some extracts from a new 
poem, called The Viiiage Curate ; send it me. I 
want likewise a cheap copy of The World. Mr. Arm- 
strong, the young poet, who does me the honour to 
mention me so kindly in his v/orks, please give him 
my best thanks for the copy of his book — I shall write 
him, my first leisure hour. I like his poetry mudi, 
but 1 think his style in prose quite astonishing. 



Your book came safe, and I am goini^ to trouble 
you with farther commissions. I call it troublin,^ you 
— because I wantonly books; the cheapest way, the 
best; so you may have to hunt for them in the even- 
ing auctions. I want Smollett's Works, for the sake 
of his incomparable humor. 1 have already Roderick 
Random, and Humphrey Clinker. — Peregrine Pickle, 
Launcclot Greaves, and Frederick, CouurPathom, I 
still want; but as I said, the veriest ordinary co- 
pies will serve me. I am nice only in the a])pearance 
of my poets. I forget the price of Cowper's Poems, 
but, I believe, I must have them. I saw the other day, 
proposals for a;publication, entitled, " Banks's new and 
complete Christian's Family Bible," printed for C. 
Cooke, Paternoster-row, London. — He promises at 
least, to give in the work, I think it is three hundred 
and odd engravings, to which he has put the names of 
the first artists in London.* — You will know the cha- 
racter of the performance, as some numbers of it are 
published ; and if it is really what it pretends to be, set 



* Perhaps j\o set of men more cflTectuiilly avail themselves 
of the easy credulity of tlie public, than a certain description 
of Fatcrnoster-row booksellers. Three hundred and odd en- 
graving's! — and by the frrst artists m London, too ! No wonder 
that Eurns was dazzled by the splendour of the promise. It 
is no unusual thing- for this class of impostors to illustrate the 
Holy Scripturea by plates orig'inally enprraved for the History of 
K7igland, and I have actually seen subjects designed by our 
celebrated artist Stothard, from Clarissa Harlowe and the Ao- 
velist\9 JMa^azlne, converted, with incredible dexterity, by 
these Bookselling-Breslaws, into Scriptural cmbeUishnwnts / 
One of these venders of 'Family Bibles' lately called on me, 
ro consult me professionally, about a folio engraving he 
brought with him. — it represented Mons. Buffon, seated, 
contem[)lating various groups of animids that surrounded 
himt He merely v.'ishcd, he said, to be informed, whether by 
imcl'ithivg th.e Naturalist, and givin;^ him a rather more reso- 
lifie look, the phite could not at a trifling- expens'^, be made to 
pass for "■'DvNiEL in the Licn^'. l^n!'* E. 



68 

me down as a subscriber, and send me the published 
numbers. 

Let me hear from you, your first leisure minute, 
and trust me, you shall in future have no reason to 
complain of my silence. The dazzling perplexity of 
novelty will dissipate and leave me to pursue my 
course in the quiet path of methodical routine. 



No. XLI. 
To Mr. W. NICOL. 

Ellislaiid^ Feb. 9, 1790. 

MY DEAR SIKj 

THAT d-mned mare of yours is dead. I would 
freely have given her price to have saved her: she 
has vexed me beyond description. Indebted as I was 
to your goodness beyond what 1 can ever repay, I ea- 
gerly grasped at your offer to have the mare with me. 
That I might at least shew my readiness in wishing to 
be grateful, I took every care of her in my power. 
She was never crossed for riding above half a score of 
times by me or in my keeping. I drew her in the 
plough, one of three, for one poor week. I refused fif- 
ty-five shillings for her, which was the highest bode I 
could squeeze for her. I fed her up and had her in fine 
crder for Dumfries fair ; when four or five days before 
the fair, she was seized with an unaccountable disor- 
der in the sinev/s, or somewhere in the bones of the 
Reck; with a weakness or total want of power in her 
fillets, and in short the whole vertebra of her spine 
seemed to be diseased or unhinged, and in eight and 
forty hours, in spite of the two best farriers in the 
country, she died and be d-mned to her! The farriers 
said that she had been quite strained in the fillets be- 
yond cure before you had bought her j and that the 



69 

poor devil, though she might keep a little flesh, had 
been jaded and quite worn out with fatigue and op- 
pression. While she was with me, she was under my 
own eye, and I assure you, my much valued friend^ 
every thing was done for her that could be done; and 
the accicient has vexed me to the heart. In fact I could 
not pluck up spirits to write you, on account of the un- 
fortunate business. 

There is little new in this country. Our theatrical 
company, of which you must have heard, leave us in 
a week. Their merit and character are indeed very 
great, both on the stage and in private life; not a 
worthless creature among them; and their encourage- 
ment has been accordingly. Their usual run is from 
eighteen to twenty -five pounds a night; seldom less 
than the one, and the house will hold no more than the 
other. There have been repeated instances of sending 
away six, and eight, and ten pounds in a night for want 
of room. A new theatre is to be built by subscription ; 
the first stone is to be laid on Friday first to come.* 
Three hundred guineas have been raised by thirty sub- 
scribers, and thirty more might have been got if want- 
ed. The manager, Mr. Sutherland, was introduced to 
me by a friend from Ayr; and a worthier or cleverer 
fellow 1 have rarely met with. Some of our clergy have 
slipt in by stealth now and then ; but they have got up 
a farce of their own. You must have heard how the 
Rev. Mr. Lawson of Kirkmahoe, seconded by the Rev. 
Mr. Kirkpatrick of Dunscore, and the rest of that fac- 
tion, have accused in formal process, the unfortunate 
and Rev. Mr. Heron of Kirkgunzeon, that in ordaining 
Mr. Nelson to the cure of souls in Kirkbean, he, the 
said Heron, feloniously and treasonably bound the said 
Nelson to the confession of faith, so far as it was agree- 
able to reason and the vjord of God! 

Mrs. B. begs to be remembered most gratefully to 
you. Little Bobby and Frank are charmingly well and 



* On Friday Hrst to co^e — a Scotticism, 



70 

healthy. I am jaded to death with fatigue. For these 
two or three months, on an average, I have not ridden 
less than two hundred miles per week. I have done 
little in the poetic way. I have given Mr. Sutherland 
two Prologues ; one of which was delivered last week. 
I have likewise strung four or five barbarous stanzas, 
to the tune of Chevy Chase, by way of Elegy on your 
poor unfortunate mare, beginning (the name she got 
here was Peg Nicholson) 

Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare> 
As ever trode on airn ; 
But now she 's floating down the Nith> 
And past the Mouth o' Caiin. 

Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare. 
And rode thro' thick and thin ; 
But now she 's floating down the Nith, 
And wanting even the skin. 

Veg Nicholson was a good bay mare, 
And ance she bore a priest; 
But now she 's floating down the Nithj 
For Solway fish a feast. 

Ve^ Nicholson was a good bay mare? 
And the priest he rode her sair: 
And much oppressed and bruised she was; 
— As priest-rid cattle are, Sec. he. 

My best compliments to Mrs. Nicol, and little Nee- 
dy, and all the family. I hope Ned is a good scholar^ 
and will come out to gather nuts and apples with me 
next harvest. 



71 

No. XLII. 

To Mr. MURDOCH, 

Teacher of French, London. 

EUislayidj July 16, 1790, 

MY BEAR SIR, 

I RECEIVED a letter fronci you a long time 

ago, but unfortunately as it was in the time of my pe- 
regrinations and journeyings through Scotland, I mis- 
laid or lost it, and by consequence your direction along 
with it. Luckily my good star brought me acquainted 
with Mr. Kennedy, who, I understand, is an acquaint- 
ance of yours : and by his means and mediation I hope 
to replace that link which my unfortunate negligence 
had so unluckily broke in the chain of our correspon- 
dence. I was the more vexed at the vile accident, as my 
brother William, a journeyman saddler, has been for 
some time in London ; and wished above all things for 
your direction, that he might have paid his respects to 
his father's friend. 

His last address he sent me was, ^' \Vm. Burns, at 
Mr. Barber's, Saddler, No. 181, Strand." 1 write him 
by Mr. Kennedy, but I neglected to ask him for your 
address; so, if you find a spare half minute, please let 
my brother know by a card where and when he will 
find you, and the poor fellow will joyfully wait on 
you, as one of the few surviving friends of the man 
whose name, and Christian name too, he has the honour 
to bear. 

The next letter I write you shall be a long one. I 
have much to tell you of "' hair-breadtb 'scapes in th* 
imminent deadly breach," with all the eventful history 
^f a life, the early years of which owed so much to 



72 

your kind tutorage ; but this at an hour of leisure. My 
kindest compliments to Mrs. Murdoch and family. 

I am ever, my dear Sir, 

Your obliged friend.* 



* This letter was communicated to the Editor by a gentle- 
jnan to whose hberal advice and information he is much in- 
debted, Mr. John Murdoch, the tutor of the poet ; accompa- 
nied by the following interesting note. 



Xondojiy Hart-sireety Bloomsbury, 
20th Dec. 1807. 



SEAR SIR, 



THE following letter, which I lately found among my pa- 
pers, I copy for your perusal, partly because it is Burns's, partly 
because it makes honourable mention of my rational Chris- 
tian friend, his father; and likewise because it is rather flat- 
tering to myself. I glory in no one thing so much as an inti- 
macy with good men : — the friendship of others reflects no ho- 
nour. When I recollect the pleasure, (and I hope benefit,) I 
received from the conversation of William Burns, espe- 
cially when on the Lord's day we walked together for about 
two miles, to the house of prayer, there publicly to adore 
and praise the Giver of all good, I entertain an ardent hope, 
that together we shall " renew the glorious theme in distant 
worlds," with powers more adequate to the mighty subject, 

THE EXUBERANT BENEFICENCE OF THE GREAT CREATOR, 

But to the letter : — {^Jlere folloivs the letter relative to young Wm. 
JBums.'] 

I promised myself a deal of happiness in the conversation 
©f my dear young friend; but my promises of this nature ge- 
nerally prove fallacious. Two visits v/ere the utmost that I 
received. At one of them, however, he repeated a lesson which 
I had given him about twenty years before, when he was a 
mere child, concerning the pity and tenderness due to ani* 
mals. To that lesson, (which it seems was brought to the le- 
vel of his capacity,) he declared himself indebted for almost 
all the philanthropy he possessed. 

Let no parents and teachers imagine that it is needless to (j 
talk seriously to children. They are sooner fit to be reasoned | 
with than is generally thought. Strong and indelible impres- ] 
sions are to be made before the mind be agitated and rufl[ied 
by the numerous train of distracting cares and unruly passions, 



No. XLIII. 

To CRAUFORD TAIT, Esq. Edinburgh. 

KUisland^ Oct, 15, 1790 

jear sir, 

ALLOW ine to introduce to your acquaintance 
the bearer, Mr. Wm. Duncan, a friend of mine, whom 
I havQ long known and long loved. His father, whose 
only son he is, has a decent little property in Ayrshire, 
and has bred the young man to the law, in which de- 
partment he comes up an adventurer to your good 
town. 1 shall give you my friend's character in two 
words : as to his head, he has talents enough, and 
more than enough for common life ; as to his heart, 
when nature had kneaded the kindly clay that com- 
poses it, she said, '' I can no more." 

You, my good sir, were born under kinder stars; 
but your fraternal sympathy, I well know, can enter 
into the feelings of the young man, who goes into life 
with the laudable ambition to do something, and to 
be something among his fellow creatures; but whom 
the consciousness of friendless obscurity presses to the 
earth, and wounds to the soul ! 

Even the fairest of his virtues are against him. 
That independent spirit, and that ingenuous modesty, 
qualities inseparable from a noble mind, are, with the 
million, circumstances not a little disqualifying. VV hat 

whereby it is frequently rendered almost iinsusce])tible of the 
principles and precepts of rational relig'ion and sound mora- 
lity. 

But I find myself digressing" ag-ain. Poor William! then in 
the bloom and vigour of youth, caught a putrid fever, and, in 
a few days, as real chief mourner, I followed his remains to 
the land of forgetfulncss. 

JOHN MURDOCH 
H 



74 

pleasure is in the power of the fortunate and the hap- 
py, by their notice and patronage, to brighten the 
countenance and glad the heart of such depressed 
youth 1 I am not so angry with miinkiiid for their deaf 
economy of the purse : — The goods of this world can- 
not be divided, without being lessened — but w hy be a 
niggard of that which bestows bliss on a fellow crea- 
ture, yet takes nothing from our own means of enjoy- 
ment? We wrap ourselves up in the cloak of our 
own better-fortune, and turn away our eyes, lest the 
wants and woes of our brother-mortals should disturb 
the selfish apathy of our souls! 

I am the worst hand in the world at asking a favor. 
That indirect address, that insinuating implication, 
which, without any positive request, plainly expresses 
your wish, is a talent not to be acquired at a plough- 
tail. Tell me then, for you can, in what periphrasis 
of language, in what circumvolution of phrase, 1 shall 
envelope yet not conceal this plain story. — " My dear 
Mr. Tait, my friend Mr. Duncan, whom I have the plea- 
sure of introducing to you, is a young lad of your own 
profession, and a gentleman of much modesty and 
great worth. Perhaps it may be in your power to as- 
sist him in the, to him, important consideration of get- 
ting a place; but at all events, your notice and ac- 
quaintance will be a very great acquisition to him; 
and I dare pledge myself that he will never disgrace 
your favor." 

You may possibly be surprised, Sir, at such a letter 
from me ; 'tis, I own, in the usual way of calculating 
these matters, more than our acquaintance entitles me 
to ; but my answer is short : Of all the men at your 
time of life, whom I knew in Edinburgh, you are the 
most accessible on the side on which I have assailed 
you. You are very much altered indeed from what 
you were when 1 knew you, if generosity point the 
path you will not tread, or humanity call to you in 
vain. 

As to myself, a being to whose interest I believe 



75 

you are still a well-wisher ; I am here, breathing at 
all times, thinking sometimes, and rhyming now and 
then. Every situation has its share of the cares and 
pains of life, and my situation I am persuaded has a 
full ordinary allovvance of its pleasures and enjoy- 
ments. 

My best compliments to your father and Miss Tait. 
If you have an opportunity, please remember me in 
the solemn league and covenant of friendship to Mrs. 
Lewis Hay. I am a wretch for not writing to her ; 
but 1 am so hackneyed with self-accusation in that 
way, that my conscience lies in my bosom with scarce 
the sensibility of an oyster in its shell. Where is La- 
dy M^Kenzie? Wherever she is, God bless her! I 
likewise beg leave to trouble you with compliments 
to Mr. Wm. Hamilton; Mrs. Hamilton and • family; 
and Mrs. Chalmers, when you are in that country. 
Should you meet with Mrs. Nimmo, please remember 
me kindlv to her. 



No. XLIV. 

To 

DEAR SIR, 



WHETHER in the way of my trade, I can be 
of any service to the Reverend Doctor,* is I fear very 
doubtful. Ajax's shield consisted, I think, of seven 
bull hides and a plate of brass, which altogether set 
Hector's utmost force at defiance. Alas ! I am not a 
Hector, and the worthy Doctor's foes are as securely 
armed as Ajax was. Ignorance, superstition, bigotry, 



* Dr. M'Gill of Ayr. The Poet gives the best illustration ot 
this letter in one addressed to Mr Graham, Dr. Ctirrie^f Ed 
•/Vo 86. 



76 

stupidity, malevolence, self-conceit, envy — all strongly 
bolmd in a massy friime of brazen impiKience. Good 
God, Sir ! to such a shield humor is the peck of a 
sparrow,, and satire the pop-gun of a schooi-boy. Ore- j 
ation-disgracing 6celcrats such as they, God only can ( 
mend, and the Devil only can punish. In the compre- i 
hending wuy of Caligula, I wish they had all but one i 
neck. 1 feel impotent as a child to the ardor o? my 
wishes! O for a withering curse to blast the germins 
of their wicked machinations. O for a poisonous Tor- 
nado, winged from the Torrid Zone of Tartarus, to 
sweep the spreading crop of ineir villainous contriv- 
ances to the jowest belli 



No. XLV. 

To Mr. ALEXANDER DALZIEL,* 

Factor, Findlayston. 

EUidand^ March 19, 1791. 

MY DEAR SIIlj 

I HAVE taken the liberty to frank this letter to 
you, as it encloses an idle poem of mine, which I send 
you ; and Gods knows you may perhaps pay dear 



* This gentleman, the factor, or steward, of Burns's noble 
friend, Lord Glencairn, with a view to encourage a second 
edition of the poems, laid the volume before his lordship, 
with such an account of the rustic bard's situation and pros- 
pects as from his slender acquaintance with him be could fur- 
nish. The result, as communicated to Burns by Dalziel, is 
highly creditable to tbe character of Ix>rd Glencairn. After 
reading the book, his lordship declared that its merits greatly 
exceeded his expectation, and he took it with him as a lite- 
rary curiosity to Edinburgh. He repeated his wislies to be of 
service to Burn^:, and desired Mr. Dalziel to inform him, that 



77 

enough for it if you read it through. Not that this is 
my own opinion; but an author by the time he has 
composed and corrected his work, has quite poured 
away all his powers of critical discrimination. 

I can easily guess from my own heart, ^vhat you 
have felt on a late most melancholy event. God knows 
what I have suffered, at the loss of my best friend, my 
first, my dearest patron and benefactor; the man to 
whom I owe all that I am and have ! I am gone into 
mourning for him, and with more sincerity of grief 
than I fear some will, who by nature's ties ought to 
feel on the occasion. 

I will be exceedingly obliged to you indeed, to let 
me know the news of the noble family, how the poor 
mother and the two sisters support their loss. I had a 
packet of poetic bagatelles ready to send to Lady Bet- 
ty, when I saw the fatal tidings in the newspaper. I 
see by the same channel that the honored remains 
of my noble patron, are designed to be brought to the 
family burial place. Dare I trouble you to let me know 
privately before the day of interment, that 1 may cross 
the country, and steal among the crowd, to pay a tear 
to the last sight of my ever revered benefactor? It 
will oblige me beyond expression. 



in patronizing the book, ushering it with effect into the world, 
01* treating with the booksellers, he would most willingly give 
every aid in his power; adding his request that Burns would 
take the earliest opportunity of letting him know in wliat 
w^ay or manner he could best further his interests. He also ex- 
pressed a wish to see some of the unpublished manuscripts, 
with a view to establish his character with tlie world. E. 



U 



78 

No. XLVl. 

Mr. THOMAS SLOAN, 
Care of Wm. Kennedy, Esq. Manchester. 

Ellisland^ Sefit, 1, 179J. 

MY DEAR SLOAN, 

SUSPENCE is worse than clisappomtment, for 
that reason I hurry to tell you that I just now learn 
that Mr. Ballantine does not chuse to mterfere ^lore 
in the business. I am truly sorry for it, but cannot 
help it. 

You blame .e for not writing you sooner, but you 
will please to recollect that you omitted one little ne- 
cessary piece of information ; — your address. 

However you know equally well, my hurried life, 
Uidolent temper, and strength of attachment. It must 
be a longer period than the ionj^est life '' in the world's 
hale and undegenerate days," that will make me forget 
so dear a friend as Mr. Sloan. I am prodigal enough 
at times, but 1 will not part with such a treasure as 
that. 

I can easily enter into the embarras of your pre- 
sent situation. You know my favorite quotation from 
Young — 

" On Reason build Resolve! 

"That column of true majesty in man."— 

And that other favorite one from Thomson's Al- 
fred — 

*' What proves the hero truly great, 
' ** Is, never, never to despair." 

Or, shall I quote you an author of your acquain- 
tance ? 

« Whether doing, suffering, or forbearing^ 

^- Yovrmay do miracles by — persevering," 



79 

I have nothing new to tell you. The few friends we 
have are going on in the old way. I sold my crop ou 
this day se'nnight, and sold it very well. A guinea an 
acre, on an average above value. But such a scene of 
drunkenness was hardly ever seen in this country. Af- 
ter the roup was over, about thirty people engaged in 
a battle, every man for his own hand, and fought it out 
for three hours. Nor was the scene much better in the 
house. No fighting, indeed, but folks lying drunk on 
the floor, and decanting, until both my dogs got so 
drunk by attending them, that they could not stand. 
You will easily guess how I enjoyed the scene; as I 
v/as no farther over than you used to see me. 

Mrs. B. and family have been in Ayrshire these 
many weeks. 

Farewel ! and God bless you^ my dear Friend ! 



No. XLVII. 
To FRANCIS GROSE, Esq. F. A. S, 

1792. 

SIR, 

I BELIEVE among ail our Scots literati you 
have not met with professor Dugald Stewart, who fills 
the nioral philosophy chair in the University of Edin- 
burgh. To say that he is a man of the first parts, and 
what is more, a man of the first worth, to a gentleman 
of your general acquaintance, and who so much enjovs 
the luxury of unincumbered freedom and undisturbed 
privacy, is not perhaps recommendation enough: — 
but when I inform you that Mr. Stewart's principal 
characteristic is your favorite feature ; that sterling 
independence of mind, which, though every man's 
riu.ht, so few men have the courage to claim, and 



80 

fewer still the magnanimity to support : — When I tell 
you, that unseduced by splendor, and undisgusted by 
wretchedness, he appreciates the merits of the various 
actors in the great drama of life, merely as they per- 
form their parts — in short, he is a man after your own 
heart, and 1 comply with liis earnest request in letting 
you know that he wishes above all things to meet with 
you. His house, Catrine, is within less than a xniie of 
Sorn Castle, which you proposed visiting; or if you 
could transmit him the inclosed, he would with the 
greatest pleasure, meet you any where in the neigh- 
bourhood. I write to Ayrshire to inform Mr. Stewart 
that I have acquitted myself of my promise. Should 
your time and spirits permit your meeting with Mr. 
Stewart, 'tis well ; if not, I hope you will forget this 
liberty, and I have at least an opportunity of assuring 
you with what truth and respect, 
I am, sir. 

Your great admirer, 

And very humble servant. 

— II 

No. XLVIII. 
TO THE SAME. 

« 

AMONG the many witch stories I have heard , 
relating to Aloway Kirk, I distinctly remember only 
two or three. 

Upon a stormy night, amid whistling squalls of wind, 
and bitter blasts of hail ; in short, on such a night as 
the devil would chuse to take the air in ; a farmer or 
farmer's servant was plodding and plashing homeward > 
•with his plough irons on his shoulder, having been get- . 
ting some repairs on them at a neighbouring smithy. 
His way lay by the Kirk of Aloway, and being rather 
on the anxious look out in approaching a place so well • 



81 

known to be a favorite haunt of -the devil and the de- 
vil's ii lends and eniissaiies, he was fitruck aghaht by 
discovering through the horrors of the storm and 
stormy night, a iigl.t, which on his neurer approach, 
piciinly shewed itself to proceed from the haunted edi- 
fice. Whether he had been iorciiied from above on iiis 
devout suppiication, as is customary with people when 
they suspect the immediate presence of Satun ; or 
whether, according to another custom, he had got 
courugeously drunk at the smithy, 1 will not pretend 
to detern.ine; but so it was that he ventured to go up 
to, nay into the very kiik. As good luck would have it 
'his temerity ci-nie off unpunished. 

The members of the infernal junto were all out on 
some midnight business or other, and he saw notliing 
but a kind of kettle or caldron, depending from the 
roof, over the fire, sinimeriug some heads of uncbris- 
tened children, limbs^ of executed malefactors, &c. for 
the business of the night. — It was, in for a penny, 
in for a pound, with the honest ploughman: so with- 
out ceremony he unhooked the caldron from off the 
fire, and pouring out the damnable ingredients, inverted 
it on his head, and carried it fairly home, where it re- 
mained long rn the family, a living evidence of the 
truth of the story. 

Another story which I can prove to be equally au- 
thentic, was as follows : 

On a market day in the town of Ayr, a farmer from 
Carrick, and consequently whose w^ay lay by the very 
gate of Aloway kirk -yard, in order to cross the river 
Doon iit the old bridge, which is about two or three 
hundred yards further on than the said gate, had been 
detained by his business, 'till by the time he reached 
Aloway it was the wizard hour, between night and 
morning. 

Though he was terrified, with a blaze streaming 
from the kirk, yet as it is a well-known fiict that to 
turn back on these occasions is running by fur the 
greatest risk of mischief, he prudently advanced on 



82 

his road. When he had reached the gate of the kirk- 
yard, he wus surprised and enterti.ined, through the 
ribs cind arches of an old gothic window, which still 
faces the highway, to see a dance of witches merrily 
footing it round their old sooty blackguard master, who 
w^as keeping them all alive with the power of his bag- 
pipe. The farmer stopping his horse to observe them 
a little, could plainly aescry the faces of many old wo- 
men of his acquaintance and neighbou! hood. How the 
gentleman was diessed, tradition ooes not say; but the 
ladies were all in their smocks, and one of them hap- 
pening unluckily to have a smock which was consi- 
derably too short to answer all the purpose of that piece 
of dress, our farmer was so tickled, that he involunta- 
rily burst out with a loud laugh, " Weel luppen, Mag- 
gy wi' the short sarki" and recollecting himseif, in- 
ptanliy spurred his horse to the top of his speed. I 
need not mention the universally known fact, that no 
diabolical power can pursue you beyond the middle of 
a running stream. Lucky it was for the poor farmer 
that the river Doon was so near, for notwithstanding 
the speed of his horse, which was a good one, against 
he reached the middle of the arch of the bridge, and 
consequently the middle of the stream, the pursuing, 
vengeful hags, were so close at his heels, that one of 
them actually sprung to seize him"; but it was too late, 
nothing was on her side of the stream but the horse's 
tail, which immediately gave way at her infernal grip, 
as if blasted by a stroke of lightning; but the farmer 
was beyond her reach. However, the unsightly, tail- 
less condition of the vigorous steed was to the last hour 
of the noble creature's life, an awful warning to the 
Carrick farmers, not to stay too late in Ayr markets. 

The last relation I shall give, though equally true, 
is not so well identified as the two former, with regard 
to the scene : but as the best authorities give it for Alo- 
way, I shall relate it. 

On a summer's evening, about the time that nature 
puts on her sables to mourn the expiry of the cheer> 
ful day, a Shepherd boy belonging to a farm.er in the 



83 

immediate neighbourhood of Aloway kirk^ had just 
folded his charge, and was returning home. As he 
passed the kirk, in the adjoining field, he fell in with a 
crew of men and women, who were busy pulling stem^ 
of the plant of Ragwort. He obsenred that as each per- 
son pulled a Ragwort, he or she got astride of it, and 
called out, <' up horsie !" on which the Ragwort flew 
off, like Pegasus, through the air with its rider. The 
foolish boy likewise pulled his Ragwort, and cried with 
the rest, " up horsie !'* and, strange to tell, away he flew 
with the company. The first stage at which the caval- 
cade stopt, was a merchant's wine cellar in Bourdeaux 
where, without saying by your leave, they quaffed away 
at the best the cellar could afibrd, until the morning, 
foe to the imps and works of darkness, threatened to 
throw light on the matter, and frightened them from 
their carousals. 

The poor shepherd lad, being equally a stranger to 
the scene and the liquor, heedlessly got himself drunk ; 
and when the rest took horse, he fell asleep, and was 
found so next day by some of the people belonging to 
the merchant. Somebody that understood Scotch, ask- 
ing him what he was, he said he was such-a-one's herd 
in Aloway, and by some means or other getting home 
again, he lived long to tell the world the wondrous 
tale. 

I am, &c. &c.* 



* Tliis letter was copied from the Cemiira Literavia, 1786. 
It was communicated to the Editor of that work by Mr. Gil- 
christ of Stamford, with the following remark. 

^* In a collection of miscellaneous papers of the Antiquary 
Grose, which I purchased a few years since, I found the follow- 
ing* letter written to him by Bui'ns, when the former was col- 
lecting the antiquities of Scotland; When I premise it was on 
the second tradition that he afterwards formed the inimitable 
tale of ** Tam O'Shanter," I cannot doubt of its being" read 
with great interest. It were " burning day -light" to point out 
to a reader, (and who is not a reader of Burns ?) the thoug-hts 
he afterwards transplanted into the rhythmical narrative." 

O.G. 



b4 

No. XLIX. 
To R. GRAHAM, Esq. Fintray. 

December^ \79^. 

SIR, 

I HAVE been surprised, confounded, and dis- 
tracted, by Mr. Mitchel, the collector, telling me that 
he has received an order from your Board to enquire 
into my political conduct, and blaming me as a person 
disaffected to Government. Sir, you are a husband — 
and a father. — You know what you would feel, to see 
the much-loved wife of your bosom, and your helpless, 
prattling little ones, turned adrift into the world, de- 
graded and disgraced from a situation in which they had 
been respectable and respected, and left almost with- 
out the necessary support of a miserable existence. 
Alas, Sir! must I think that such, soon, will be my 
lot ! and from the d-mned, dark insinuations of hellish 
groundless envy too! I believe. Sir, I may aver it, and 
in the sight of Omniscience, that I would not tell a de- 
liberate falsehood, no, not though even worse horrors, 
if worse can be, than those I have mentioned, hung 
over my head; and I say, that the allegation, whatever 
villain has made it, is a lie I To the British Constitu- 
tion, on revolution principles, next after my God, I 
am most devoutly attached ! You, Sir, have been much 
and generously my friend. — Heaven knows how warm- 
ly I have felt the obligt^tion, and how gratefully I have 
thanked you. — Fortune, Sir, has made you powerful, 
and me impotent; has given you patronage, aad me 
dependance. — I would not, for my single self, call on 
your humanity ; were such my insular, unconnected 
situation, I v^ould despise the tear that now swells in 
my ^ye — I could brave misfortune, I could face ruin; 
for at the worst, " Death's thousand doors stand open j'' 



85 

but, ii;oocl Gpd i the tender concerns that I have meii- 
tioned, the claims and ties that I see at this moment, 
and feel around me, how they unnerve Courage, and 
wither Resolution! To your patronage, as a man of 
some genius, you have allowed me a claim; and your 
esteem, as an honest man, 1 know is my due : To these, 
Sir, permit me to appeal ; hy these may I adjure you 
to save me from that misery which threatens to over- 
whelm me, and which, with my latest breath I will say 
it, I have not deserved. 



No. L. 
ro Mr. T. CLARKE, Edinburgli. 

July 16, 1792. 

MR. BURNS begs leave to present his most 
respectful compliments to Mr. Clarke. — Mr. B. some 
time ago did himself the honor of writing Mr. C. re- 
specting coming out to the country, to give a little 
musical instruction in a highly respectable family, 
where Mr. C may have his own terms, and may be as 
happy as indolence, the Devil, and the gout will per- 
mit him. Mr. B. knows well how Mr. C is engaged 
with another family; but cannot Mr. C. find two or 
three weeks to spare to each of them t Mr. B. is deeply 
impressed with, and awfully conscious of, the high im- 
portance of Mr. C.'s time, whether in the winged mo- 
ments of symphonious exhibition, at the keys of har- 
mony, while listening Seraphs cease their own less 
delightful strains; — or in the drowsy hours of slumb'- 
rous repose, in the arms of his dearly-beloved elbow- 
chair, where the frowsy, but potent power of indolence, 
circumfuses her vapours round, and sheds her dews on, 
the head of her darling son. — But half a line convey- 
ing half a meaning from Mr. C. would make Mr. B. 
the very happiest of mortals. 



86 

No. LI. 
To Mrs. DUNLOP. 

Dec. 31, 1792, 

BEAK MADAM, 

A HURRY of business, thrown in heaps by my 
absence, has until now prevented my returning my 
grateful acknowledgments to the good family of Dun- 
lop, and you in particular, for that hospitable kindness 
which rendered the four days I spent under that genial 
roof, four of the pleasantest I ever enjoyed. — Alas, my 
dearest friend ! how few and fleeting are those things 
we call pleasures ! On my road to Ayrshire, I spent a 
night wiUi a friend whom I much valued ; a man whose 
d .ys promised to be many; and on Saturday last we 
laid him in the dust ! 

Jan. 2, 1793. 

I HAVE just received yours of the 30th, and 
-feel much for your situation. However, I heartily re- 
joice in your prospect of recovery from that vile jaun- 
dice. As to myself I am better, though not quite free 
of my complaint. You must not think, as you seem to 
insinuate, that in my way of life I want exercise. Of 
that I have enough; but occasional hard drinking is 
the devil to me. Against this 1 have again and again 
bent iny resolution, and have greatly succeeded. Ta- 
verns I have totally abandoned : it is the private par- 
ties in the family way, an>ong the hard drinking gen- 
tlemen of this country, that do xne the mischief — but 
even this I have more than half given over.* 

* The following extract from a letter addressed by Mr 



87 

Mr. Corbet can be of little service to me at present , 
at least I should be shy of applying. I cannot possibly 
be settled as a supervisor, for several years. I must 
wait the rotation of the list, and there are twenty names 
before mine. — I might indeed get a job of officiating, 
where a settled supervisor was ill, or ai^ed ; but that 
hauls me from my family? as I could not remove them 
on such an uncertainty. Besides, some envious, mali- 
cious devil has raised a little demur on my political 
principles, and I wish to let that matter settle before I 
offer myself too much in the eye of my supervisors. I 
have set henceforth a seal on my lips, as to these un- 



Bloomfield to the Earl of Buclian, contains so interesting an 
exhibition of the modesty inherent in real worth, and so phi- 
losophical, and at the same time so poetical an estimate of the 
difterent characters and destinies of Burns and its author, that 
I should deem myself culpable were I to v/ithhold it from the 
public view. E. 

**The illustrious soul that has left amongst us the name of 
Burns, has often been lowered down to a comparison with me ; 
but the comparison exists more in circumstances than in es- 
sentials. That man stood up with the stamp of superior in- 
tellect on his brow; a visible greatness: and great and patri- 
otic subjects would only have called into action the powers of 
his mind, which lay inactive while he played calmly and ex- 
quisitely the pastoral pipe. 

The letters to which I have alluded in my prefiice to the 
*' Rural Tales," were iViendly warnings, pointed with imme- 
diate reference to the fate of that extraordinary man. ** Re- 
membei- B'urns," has been the watch-word of my friends. I 
do remember Burns; hut I am 7iot Burns! neither* have I his 
fire to fan or to quench ; nor his passions to control ! Where 
then is my merit if I make a peaceful voyage on a smooth sea 
nd with no mutiny on board? To a lady, (I have it from her- 
' If ) who remonstrated with him on his danger from drink, 
c.nd tlie pursuits of some of his associates, he replied, " Ma- 
dam, they would not thank me for my company, if I did not 
drink with them: — I must give them a slice of my constitu- 
tion." Mow much to be regretted that he did not give them 
thinner slices of his constitution, that it miglit have lasted 
longer!'' 

London, 180?. 



88 

lucky politics; but to you, I must breathe noy senti 
irients. In this, as in everything else, I shall shew the 
undisguised emotions of my soul. War I deprecate : 
misery and ruin to thousands, are in the blast that an- 
nounces the destructive demon. But * * * * 

^T/ie reinainder of this letter has been torn a'voay by scnia 
barbarous hand.^ 



No. LII. 
To PATRICK MILLER, Esq. of Dalswinton. 

^/irily 1793, 

SIRj 

MY poems having just come out in another edi- 
tion, will you do me the honor to accept of a copy ? A 
mark of my gratitude to you, as a gentleman to whose 
goodness I have been much indebted; of my respect 
for you, as a patriot who, in a venal, sliding age, stands 
forth the champion of the liberties of my country ; and 
of my veneration for you, as a man, whose benevolence 
of heart does honor to human nature. 

There was a time. Sir, when I w^as your dependant : 
this language then would have been like the vile in- 
cense of flattery — I could not have used it. — Now that 
< onnection* is at an end, do me the honor to accept of 
this honest tribute of respect from, Sir, 

Your much indebted humble Servant. 



* Alluding to the time when he held the farm of Ellisland, 

uv t.cnant to Mr. M. 



89 

No. Llll. 
To JOHN FRANCIS ERSKINE, Esq.* of Mar. 

Dumfries J \3thJpril, 1793. 

SIR, 

DEGENERATE as human Nature is said to 
be ; and in many instances, worthless and unprincipled 
it is ; still there are bright examples to the contrary ; 
examples that even in the eyes of superior beings, 
must shed a lustre on the name of Man. 

Such an example have I now before me, when you. 
Sir, came forward to patronise and befriend a distant 
obscure stranger, merely because poverty had made 
him helpless, and his British hardihood of mind had 
provoked the arbitrary wantonness of power. My 
much esteemed friend, Mr. Riddel of Glenriddel, has 
just read me a paragraph of a letter he had from you. 
Accept, Sir, of the silent throb of gratitude ; for words 
would but mock the emotions of my soul. 

You have been misinformed as to my final dismis- 
sion from the Excise ; I am still in the service. — In- 
deed, but for the exertions of a gentleman who must 



* This gentleman, most obligingly favoured the Editor 
with a perfect copy of the original letter, and allowed him to 
lay it before the public. — It is partly printed in Dr. Cuvri-j's 
J^dltion. 

It will be necessary to state, that in consequence of the 
poet's freedom of remark on public measures, nuUiciously 
misrepresented to the Board of Excise, he was represented *is 
actually dismissed from his office. — This report induced Mr. 
Erskme to propose a subscription in his favour, which was re- 
fused by the poet with that elevation of sentiment that pecu- 
liarly characterised liis mind, and whicli is so happily ciispiuy- 
cd in this letter. See letter No. 49, in the present volume, 
vvi'itten by Burns, with even more than liis accustomed pathos 
and eloquence, in further explanation. K. 

I '.• 



90 

be known to yon, Mr. Graliam of Fintray, a gentle- 
man who has ever been my warm and generous friend, 
i had, without so much as a hearing, or the slightest 
previous intimation, been turned adrift, with my help- 
less family to all the horrors of want. — Had I had 
any other resource, probably I might have saved them 
the trouble of a dismission ; but the little money I 
gained by my publication, is almost every guinea em- 
barked, to save from ruin an only brother, who, though 
one of the worthiest, is by no means one of the m.ost 
fortunate of men. 

In my defence to their accusations, I said, that what- 
ever might be my sentiments of republics, ancient or 
modern, as to Britain, I abjured the idea. — That a 
CONSTITUTION, which, in its original principles, expe- 
rience had proved to be every way fitted for our hap- 
piness in society, it would be insanity to sacrifice lo an 
untried visionary theory : — That, in consideration of 
my being situated in a department, however humble, 
immediately in the hands of the people in power, I 
had forborne taking any active part, either personally, 
or as an author, in the present business of reform. 
But that, where I must declare my sentiments, I 
would say there existed a system of corruption be- 
tween the executive power, and the representative 
part of the legislature, which boded no good to our 
glorious CONSTITUTION ; and which every patriotic 
Briton must v/ish to see amended. — Some such senti- 
ments as these, T stated in a letter to my generous pa- 
tron Mr. Graham, which he laid before the Board at 
large ; where, it seems, my last remark gave great of- 
fence ; and one of our supervisors general, a Mr. Cor- 
bet, was instructed to enquire on the spot, and to do- 
cument me — ^' that my business was to act, not to 
chink ; and that w^hatever might be men or measures, 
it w-as for me to be silent and obedient." 

Mr. Corbet was likewise m.y steady friend ; so be- 
tween Mr. Graham and him, I have been partly for- 
given ; only I understand that all hopes of my gettiuL^ 
©fficially forward; are blasted. 



91 

No^^^ Sir, to the Inisiness in which I would more 
immediately interest you. The pariiaiiiy of ray 
COUNTRYMEN, has brought me forward as a man of 
genius, and has given me a character to support. In 
the POET I hAve avowed manly and independent senti- 
n\ents, which I trust will be found in the iMAX. Rea- 
sons of no less wei.^ht than the support of a wife and 
family, have pointed out as the eiigible, and situated as 
I was, the only elii^nble line of life for me, my present 
occupation. Still my honest fame is my dearest con- 
cern ; and a thousand times have I trembled at the 
idea of those dcgradirig epithets that malice or misre*- 
presentation may affix to my n.aiie. I have often, in 
blasting anticipaiion, listened to some future hackiiey 
scribbler, with the heavy malice of savage stupidity, 
exulting in his hireling paragraphs — ^* Burns, not- 
withstanding the fanfaronade of independence to be 
found in his works, and after having been held forth 
to public view, and to public estinivition as a man of 
some genius, yet, quite destitute of resources vvithin 
himself to support his borrowed dignity, he dwindled 
into a paltry exciseman, and slunk out the rest of his 
insignificant existence in the meanest of pursuits, and 
among the vilest of mankind." 

In your illustrious hands. Sir, permit me to lodge 
my disavowal and defiance of these slanderous false- 
hoods. — Burns was a poor man from birth, and an ex- 
ciseman by necessity: but — I will say it! the sterling 
of his honest worth, no poverty could debase, and his 
independent British mind, oppression might bend, but 
could not subdue. Have not 1, to me, a more precious 
stake in my Country's welfare, than the richest duke- 
dom in it \ — I have a large family of children, and the 
prospect of many more. I have three sons, who, I see 
already, have brought into the world souls ill qualified 
to inhabit the bodies of slaves. — Can 1 look tamely 
on, and see any machihation to wrest from them the 
birthright of my boys, — the little independent bri- 
TONs, in whose veins runs my ov/n blood f — Nol 1 will 



92 

not I should my heart's blood stream around my attempt 
to defend it 1 

Does any man tell me, that my full efforts can be of 
no service ; and that it does not belong to my humble 
station to meddle with the concerns of a nation ? 

I can tell him, that it is on such indi\iduals as I, 
that a nation has to rest, both for the hand of support, 
and the eye of intelligence. The uninformed mob, 
may swell a nation*s bulk ; and the titled, tinsled, court- 
ly throng, may be its feathered ornament; but the 
number of those who are elevated enough in life to 
reason and to reflect; yet low enough to keep clear 
of the venal contagion of a court ; — these are a nation's 
strength. 

I know not how to apologise for the impertinent 
length of this epistle ; but one small request I must 
ask of you farther — When you have honored this let- 
ter with a perusal, please to commit it to the flames. 
Burns, in whose behalf you have so generously inte- 
rested yourself, I have here, in his native colors drawn 
as he is; but should any of the people in whose hands 
is the very bread he eats, get the least knowledge of 
the picture, it would ruin the fioor BARD^/c/r ever I 

My poems having just come out in another edition, 
I beg leave to present you with a copy,- as a small 
mark of that high esteem and ardent gratitude j with 
which I have the honor to be, 
Sir, 

Yx)ur deeply indebted, 

And ever devoted humble servant, 



91 

No. LIV. 
To Mr. ROBERT AINSLIE. 

Afiril'l^, 1793. 

I AM d — mnably out of humour, my dear Ains- 
tie, and that is the reason, why I take up the pen to 
you: 'tis the nearest way, (firobatum est) to recover 
my spirits again. 

I received yOur last, and was much entertained with 
it; but I will not at this time, nor at any other time, 
answer it. — Answer a letter? I never could answer a 
letter in my life ! — I have written many a letter in return 
for letters I have received; but then — they were origi- 
nal matter — spurt-away ! zig-, here ; zag, there ; as if the 
Devil that, my Grannie (an old woman indeed!) often 
told me, rode in will-'o-wisp, or, in her more cl issic 
phrase, Spunkie, were looking over my elbow. — Happy 
thought that idea has engendered in my head! Spun- 
kie — thou shalt henceforth be my symbol, signature, 
and tutelary genius! Like thee, hap-step-and-lowp, 
here-awa-there-awa, higglety-pigglety, pell-mell, hi- 
ther-and-yon, ram-stam, happy-go-lucky, up tails-a'- 
by-the light-o'-the-moon ; has been, is, and shall be, 
my progress through the Mosses and Moors of this 
vile, bleak, barren wilderness of a life of ours. 

Come then my guardian spirit! like thee, may I 
skip away, amusing myself by and at my own light: 
and if any opaque-souled lubber of mankind complain 
that my elfine, lambent, glimmerous wanderings have 
misled his stupid steps over precipices, or into bogs ; 
let the thick-headed Blunderbuss recollect that he is 
not Spunkie: — that 

Spunkie's wandering's could not copied be; 
Amid these perils none durst walk but ke.— * 



92 

1 have no doubt but scholarcraft may be caught as a 
Scotsman catches the itch, — by friction. How else can 
you account for it, that born blockheads, by mere dint 
of handling books, grow so wise that even they them- 
selves are equally convinced of and surpris'd at their 
own parts ? I once carried this philosophy to that de- 
gree that in a knot of country folks who had a library 
amongst them, and who, to the honor of their good 
sense, made me factotum in the business ; one of our 
members, a little, wise-looking, squat, upright, jabber- 
ing body of a taylor, I advised him, instead of turning 
over the leaves, to bind the book on his back, — Johnie 
took the hint; find as our meetings were every fourth 
Saturday, and Pricklouse having a good Scots mile to 
walk in coming, and, of course, another in returning, 
Bodkin was sure to lay his hands on some heavy quar- 
to, or ponderous folio, with, and under which, wrapt 
up in his grey plaid, he grew wise, as he grew wxary, 
all the V, ay home. He carried this so far, that an old 
musty Hebrew concordance which we had in a present 
from a neighbouring priest, by mere dint of applying 
it, as doctors do a blistering plaister, between his shoul- 
ders. Stitch, in a dozen pilgrimages, aot^uired as much 
rational theology as the said priest hail done by forty 
years perusal of the pages. 

Tell me, and tell me truly, what you think of this 
theory. 

Yours, 

SP.UNKIE. 



95 

No. LV. 
To Miss K 



MADAM, 

PERMIT me to present you with the enclosed 
song as a small though grateful tribute for the honor 
of your acquaintance. I have, in these verses, attempted 
some faint sketches of your portrait in the unembel- 
lished simple manner of descriptive truth. — Flatte- 
ry, 1 leave to your lovers, whose exaggerating fan- 
cies may make them imagine you still nearer perfec- 
tion than you really are. 

Poets, Madam, of all mankind, feel most forcibly 
the powers of beauty ; as, if they are really poets 
of nature's making, their feelings must be finer, and 
their taste more delicate than most of the world. In 
the cheerful bloom of spring, or the pensive mildness 
of autumn; the grandeur of summer, or the hoary 
majesty of winter; the poet feels a charm unknown 
to the rest of his species. Even the sight of a fine 
flower, or the company of a fine woman, (by far the 
finest part of God's works below) have sensations for 
the poetic heart that the herd of man are strangers 
to. — On this last account. Madam, J am, as in many 
other things, indebted to Mr. Hamilton's kindness in 
introducing me to you. Your lovers may view you with 
a wish, I look on you with pleasure ; their hearts, in 
your presence, may glow with desire, mine rises with 
admiration. 

That the arrows of misfortune, however they should, 
as incident to humanity, glance a slight wound, may 
i:iever reach your heart — that the snares of villainy 
may never beset you in the road of life — that inno- 
' ExcE may hand you by the path of honor to the 
dwelling of peace, is the sincere wish of him who ha^ 
'Ju' honor to be, kc. 



96 

No. LVI. 
To LADY GLENCAIRN. 

MY LADY, 

THE honor you have done your poor poet, in 
t'^riting him so very obliging a letter, and the pleasure 
the inclosed beautiful verses have given him, came 
very seasonably to his aid amid the cheerless gloom 
and sinking despondency of diseased nerves and De- 
cember weather. As to forgetting the family of Glen- 
cairn, Heaven is my witness with what sincerity I 
could use those old verses which please me more in 
their rude simplicity than the most elegant lines I 
ever saw. 

If thee Jerusalem I forget. 

Skill part from my right hand. — 

My tongue to my mouth's roof let cleave, 

If I do thee forget 
Jerusalem, and thee above 

My chief joy do not set. — 

When I am tempted to do any thing improper, I 
dare not because I look on myself as accountable to 
your ladyship and family. Now and then when I have 
the honor to be called to the tables of the great, if I 
happen to meet with any mortification from the stately 
stupidity of self-sufficient squires, or the luxuriant in- 
solence of upstart nabobs, I get above the creatures 
by calling to remembrance that I am patronised by tjie 
Boble house of Glencairn ; and at gala-times, such as 
New-year's day, a christening, or the kirn-night, when 
my punch-bowl is brought from its dusty corner and 
filled up in honor of the occasion, 1 begin with, — The 
Countess of Glencairn ! My good woman, with the en- 
thusiasm of a grateful heart, next cries. My Lord! and 
so the toast goes on until I end with Lady Harriet's 



i^7 

■ tie unwell ^vhobc epkhalaiiiium 1 have pledged m^ 
self to write. 

When I received your ladyship's letter, 1 was just 
in the act of transcribing for you some verses 1 have 
lately composed ; and meant to have sent them my hrst 
leisure hour, and acquainted you with my late change 
of life. I mentioned to nriy lord, my fears concerning 
my farm. Those fears were indeed too true; it is <x 
bargain would have ruined me but for the lucky cir- 
cumstance of my having an excise commission. 

People may talk as they please, of the ignominy 
of the excise ; fifty pounds a year will support my 
wife and children and keep me independerit of the 
world ; and I would much rather have it said that my 
profession borrowed credit from me than that I bor- 
rowed credit from my profession. Another advantage 
I have in this business, is the knowledge it gives me 
of the various shades of human character, conse- 
quently assisting me vastly in my poetic pursuits. I 
had the most ardent enthusiasm for the muses when 
nobody knew me. but myself, and that ardor is by no 
means cooled now that my lord Glencairn's goodness 
has introduced me to all the world. Not that 1 am in 
haste for the press. I have no idea of publishing, else 
I certainly had consulted my noble generous patron; 
but after acting the part of an honest man, and sup- 
porting my family, my whole wishes and views are di- 
rected to poetic pursuits. I am aware that thougli I 
V'cre to give performances to the world superior to 
my former works, still if they were of the same kind 
with those, the comparative reception they would meet 
with would mortify me. 1 have turned my thoughts 
on the drama. I do not mean the stately buskin of the 
tragic muse. 

* * # * 

Docs not your ladyship think that an Edinburgh thea- 
tre would be more amused with affectation, folly and 
wWmof true Scottish growth, than manners which bv 



98 

far the greatest part of the audience can only know at 
second hand ? 

I have the honor to be 

Your ladyship's ever devoted 
And grateful humble servant. 



No. LVIL 

To THE EARL OF BUCHAN, j^ 

With a Copy of " Bruce's Address to his Troops at 
Bannockburn." 

Dumfries^ \2th Jan. 1794. 

MY LORD, 

WILL your lordship allow me to present you 
with the inclosed little composition of mine, as a small 
tribute of gratitude for that acquaintance with which 
you have been pleased to honor me. Independent of 
my enthusiasm as a Scotsman, I have rarely met with 
any thing in history which interests my feelings as a 
man, equal with the story of Bannockburn. On the 
one hand, a cruel, but able usurper, leading on the 
finest army in Europe to extinguish the last spark of 
freedom among a greatly-daring, and greatly-injured 
people : on the other hand, the desperate relics of a 
gallant nation, devoting themselves to rescue their 
bleeding country, or perish with her. 

Liberty ! thou art a prize truly, and indeed invalua- 
ble ! — -for never canst thou be too dearly bought! 

I have the honor to be, &c= 



99 

No. LVIII. 
To THE EARL OF GLENCAIRN. 

MY LORD, 

\V HEN you cast your eye on the naine at the 
bottom of this letter, and on the title-p..ge of the book- 
I do myself the honor to send your lordship, a more 
pleasurable feeling than my vanity tells me, that it 
must be a name not entirely unknown to you. The ge- 
nerous patronage of your late illustrious brother found 
me in the lowest obscurity : he introduced my rustic 
muse to the partiality of my country ; and to him I owe 
all. My sense of his goodness, and the anguish of my 
soul ck losing my truly noble protector and friend, I 
have endeavored to express in a poem to his memory, 
which 1 have now published. This edition is just from 
the press; and in my gratitude to the dead, and my re- 
spect for the living (fiime belies you my lord, if you 
possess not the same dignity of man, which was your 
noble brother's characteristic feature,) I had destined 
a copy for the Earl of Glencairn. I learnt just now that 
you are in town: allow me to present it you. 

I know, my lord, such is the vile, venal contagion 
which pervades the world of letters, that professions 
©f respect from an author, particularly from a poet, to 
a lord, are more than suspicious. I claim my by-past 
conduct, and my feelings at this moment, us excep- 
tions to the too just conclusion. Exalted as are the 
lienors of your lordship's name, and unnctcd as is the 
obscurity of mine; with the uprightness of an honest 
man, I come before your lordship, with an offering, 
however humble, 'tis all I have to give, of my grate- 
ful respect ; and to beg of you, my lord, — 'tis all I have 
to ask of rou, that you will do me the honor to accept 
of it. 1 have the honor to be, Sec* 



* The original letter is in the possession of the Honorable 
Mrs. Holland, of Poynings. From a memorandum on the back 
cvf the letter it appears to have been written in May, 1794. 

r L. w. w. 



100 

NTo. LIX. 
To Dr. ANDERSON. 



i^IR, 



I AM ir.uch indebted to my worthy friend i). 
Blacklock for introdiicin;^^ me to a gentleman of Dr. 
Anderson's celebrity; but when you do me the honor 
to ask my assistance in your purposed publication, alas. 
Sir ! you might as well think to cheapen a little honesty 
at the sign of an Advocate's wig, or humility under the 
Geneva band. I am a miserable hurried devil, worn to 
ihe marrow in the friction of holding the noses of the 
poor publicans to the grindstone of Excise ; and like 
Milton's Satan^ for private reasons, am forced 

" To do what yet tho^ damned I would abhor i"^ — 

and except a couplet or two of honest execration * 



No. LX. 

To Mrs. DUNLOP. 

Castle Bouglasj 25th June^ 1794. 

HERE in a solitary inn, in a solitary village, am 
1 set by myself, to amuse my brooding fancy as I may. 
Solitary confinement, you know, is Howard's favorite 
idea of reclaiming sinners; soiet me consider by what 
fatality it happens that I have so long been exceeding 
sinful as to neglect the correspondence of the most 
valued friend I have on earth. To tell you that I have 
been in poor health, will not be excuse enough, though 
it is true. I am afraid I am about to sufier for the foK 



101 

lies of my youth. My medical friends threaten me 
with a flyhig gout; but I trust they are mistaken. 

I am just going to trouble your critical patience 
with the first sketch of a stanza I have been framing 
as I paced along the road. The subject is liberty : 
You know, my honored friend, how dear the theme is 
to me. I design it an irregular ode for General Wash- 
ington's birth-day. After having mentioned the dege- 
neracy of other kingdoms I come to Scotland thus : 

Thee, Caledonia, thy wild heaths among, 
Thee, famed for martial deed and sacred song, 

To thee I turn with swimming eyes ; 
Where is that soul of freedom fled ? 
Immingled with the mighty dead ! 

Beneath that hallowed turf where Wallace lies! 
Hear it not, Wallace, in thy bed of death ! 

Ye babbling winds, in silence weep; 

Disturb not ye the hero's sleep, 
Nor give the coward secret breath. — 

Is this the power in freedom's war 

That wont to bid the battle rage ? 
Behold that eye which shot immortal hate, 

Crushing the despot's proudest bearing, 
That arm which, nerved with thundering fatCj 

Braved usurpation's boldest daring ! 
One quenched in darkness like the sinking star, 
And one the palsied arm of tottering, powerless age. 

You will probably have another scrawl from me in 
a stage or two. 



102 

No. LXL 
To Mr. JAMES JOHNSON. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, 

YOU should have heard from me long ago; bixt 
over and above some vexatious share in the pecuniary 
losses of these accursed times, I have all this winter 
been plagued with low spirits and blue devils, so that 
I have almost hung my harfi on the nvillow trees, 

I am just now busy correcting a new edition of my 
poems, and this, with my ordinary business, finds me 
in full employment.* 

I send you by my friend Mr. Wallace forty-one 
songs for your iifth volume ; if we cannot finish it any 
other way, what would you think of Scots words to 
some beautiful Irish airs? In the mean time, at your 
leisure, give a copy of the Museum to my worthy 
friend Mr. Peter Hill, Bookseller, to bind for me, in- 
terleaved with blank leaves, exactly as he did the 
Laird of Glenriddel's,! that I may insert every anec- 
dote I can learn, together with my own criticisms and 
remarks on the songs. — A copy of this kind I shall 
leave with you, the editor, to publish at some after pe- 
riod, by way of making the Museum a book famous to 
tlie end of time, and you renowned for ever. 

I have got an Highland Dirk for which I have great 
veneration ; as it once was the dirk of Lord Balmeri- 
no. It fell into bad hands, who stripped it of the silver 

* Burns's anxiety with regard to the correctness of his writ- 
ing's was very great. Being questioned as to his mode of com- 
position, he replied, " All my poetry is the effect of easy com- 
position, but of laborious corrections^ 

\ This is the manuscript book containing the remarks on 
Scottish songs and ballads, presented to the public, with con- 
' iderable additions^ in this volume. 



103 

-mounting, as well as the knife and fork. I have some 
thout^iits of sending it to your care, to get il mounted 
anew. 

Thank you for the copies of my Volunteer Ballad. 

Our friend Clarke has done indeed well ! 'tis chaste 

and beautiful. I have not met with any thing that has 
pleased me so much. You know, I am no Connois- 
seur ; but that 1 am an Amateur — will be allowed mc. 



No. Lxn. 
To Miss rONTENELLE. 

Accompanying a Prologue to be spoken for 
hei' Benefit. 

MADAM, 

IN such a bad world as ours, those who add to 
the scanty sum of our pleasures, are positively our be- 
nefactors. To you Madam, on our humble Dumfries 
Idoards, I have been more indebted for entertcjnment 
than ever I was in prouder theatres. Your charms as 
a woman would insure applause to the most indiffe- 
rent actress, and your theatrical talents would insure 
admiration to the plainest figure. This, Madam, is not 
the unmeaning, or insidious compliment of the frivo- 
lous or interested; I pay it from the same hbnest im- 
pulse that the sublime of nature excites my admira- 
tion, or her beauties give me delight. 

Will the foregoing lines be of any service to you on 
your approaching benefit night? If they will, I shall 
be prouder of my muse than ever. They are nearly 
extempore: I know they have no great merit; but 
though they should add but little to the entertainment 
of the evening, they give me the happhiess of an op- 
portunity to declare how much I have the honor to 
be, Sec. 



104 

No. LXIII. 
To PEl ER MILLER, Jan. Esq.* of Dalswinton. 

Dumfries^ JVov, 1794. 

DEAR SIR, 

YOUR offer is indeed truly generous, and most 
sincerely do 1 thank you for it ; but in my present si- 
tuation, I find that I dare not accept it. You well know 
my political sentiments ; and were I an insular indivi- 
dual, unconnected with a wife and a family of children, 
with the most fervid enthusiasm I would have volun- 
teered my services : I then could and would have de- 
spised all consequences that might have ensued. 

My prospect in the excise is something; at least, it 
is encumbered as I am with the welfare, the very ex- 
istence, of near half-a-score of helpless individuals, 
what I dare not sport with. 

In the miCan time they are most welcome to my 
Ode ; only, let them insert it as a thing they have met 
with by accident and unknown to me. — Nay, if Mr. 
Perry, whose honor, after your character of him I 
cannot doubt : if he will give me an address and chan- 
nel by which any thing will come safe from those 



* In a conversation with his friend Mr. Perry, (the propri- 
etor of " The Morning Chronicle,") Mr. Miller represented 
to that gentleman the insufficiency of Burns's salary to answer 
the imperious demands of a numerous family. In their sym- 
pathy for his misfortunes, and in their regret that his talents 
were nearly lost to the world of letters, these gentlemen 
'^agreed on the plan of settling" him in London. 

To accomplish this most desirable object, Mr. Perry, very 
spiritedly, made the Poet a handsome offer of an annual stip- 
end for the exercise of his talents in his newspaper. Burns's 
reasons for refusing this offer are stated in the present letter 

E. 



105 

-jpies ^vith which he may be certain that his corres- 
pondence is beset, I will now and then send him any 
bagatelle that I may write. In the present hurry of 
Europe, nothing but news and politics will be regard- 
ed ; but against the days of peace, which Heaven send 
soon, my little assistance may perhaps fill up an idle 
column of a Newspaper. 1 have long had it in my 
head to try my hand in the way of little prose essays, 
which I propose sending into the world through the 
medium of some Newspaper ; and should these be 
worth his while, to these Mr. Perry shall be welcoii e;. 
and all my reward shall be, his treating me with his 
paper, which, by the bye, to any body who has the 
least relish for wit, is a high treat indeed. 

With the most grateful esteem, I am ever^ 

Dear Sir, &c. 



No. LXIV. 
To GAVIN HAMILTON, Esq. 

Dumfries. 

MY DEAR SIR, 

IT is indeed with the highest satisfaction that I 
congratulate you on the return of '^ days of ease, and^ 
nights of pleasure," after the horrid hours of nfisery^ 
in which 1 saw you suffering existence when I was 
last in Ayrshire. I seldom pn^y for any body. " 1 'm 
baitji dead sweer, and wretched ill o't." But most fer- 
vently do I beseech the great Director of this world, 
that you may live long and be happy, but that you may 
live no longer than while you are happy. It is need- 
less for me to advise you to have a reverend care of 
your health. I know you will make it a point never, at 
one time, to drink jjjorethiin a pint of wine ; (1 mean 



106 1 

an English pint,) and that you will never be witness, 
to more than one bowl of punch at a time; c.nd that 
coid drams you w ill never more taste. I am well con- 
vinced too, that alter drinidng, perhaps boiling pi nch, 
you will never mouiit your hoi se and gallop home in a ' 
chill, late hour, — Above all things, as 1 understand 
you are now in h.bits of inlinacy with that Boanerges 
oi gospel powers. Father AuLd^* be earnest with him 



* The Rev. Wm. Jiuld, the then Minister of Mauchline. 
This man was of a morose and malicious disposition; he had 
quarrelled with Mr. Gavin Hamilton's father, and sought every 
occasion of revcngmg himself on the son. Burns dearly loved 
Gavin Hamilton, and could not view this conduct with indif- 
ference: besides, Father Auld in his religious tenets was 
highly calvinistic, dealing damnation around him with no 
sparing hand. He was also superstitious and bigotted in the 
extreme: — Excellent marks for the poet! The following spe- 
cimens of Father Auld will shew liis desire to provoke and 
irritate Mr. Hamilton, and are a full display of the liberality 
of his sentiments in matters of religion. 

He unwarrantably refused to christen Mr. Hamilton's child 
for the following reasons : — that Mr. Hamilton rode on Sun- 
days — that he had ordered a person to dig a few potatoes in 
his garden on the Sabbath-day, (for which he was cited before 
the Kirk!) He also charged him with dining in a public house 
on a King^s fast day^ with two gentlemen, and that they were 
even heard to xvkistle ^r\d sing after dinner. — Moreover, which 
Was the heaviest and most awful charge of all — be, Mr. Auld, 
heard Gavin Hamilton say, " I)-7nn it^^ in his own presence ! 

All this idle and vexatious folly tended, as might be expect- 
ed, to alienate the mind of Mr. Hamilton both from the parson 
and his pidpit. Father Auld and his adherents charged him 
with neglect of religion and disrespect for its professors. The 
poet took his friend and patron's part, and repelled the attack 
fcy extolling Mr. Hamilton's elevation of sentiment, his readi- 
ness to forgive injuries, and, above al), his universal active 
benevolence. These excellent qualities Burns opposed to the 
fierceness, fanaticism, and monkish gloom of this class of 
priests. His sentiments on the subject are given in this letter 
with infinite address, and in a strain of sly, covert humour 
that he has seldom surpassed. He is equally sly, but more ex- 
plicit in his poetical dedication of his works to Gavin Hamil- ' 
ton. — In a copy, in the poet's writing, that I have seen, the 



107 

that he \viil wrestle in prayer for you, that you may 
see the vanity of vanities in trusting to, or even practis- 
ing the carnal moral works of charity^ hiunanity^ gene- 
roaitu^ ^r\^ forgiveness ; things which you practised so 
flagrantly that it was evident you delighted in them; 
neglecting, or perhaps, prophanely despising the 
zoholesome doctrine of " Faith without works, the only 
anchor of salvation/' 

A hymn of thanksgiving would, in my opinion, be 
highly becoming from you at present ; and in my zeal 
for your well-being, 1 earnestly press it on you to be 
diligent in chanting over the two inclosed pieces of sa- 
cred poesy. My best compliments to Mrs. Hamilton 
and Miss Kennedy. 

Yours in the L d, 

R. B. 



No. LXV. 
To Mr. SAMUEL CLARKE, Jun. Dumfries, 

Siniday JMorning. 

DEAR Silt, 

1 WAS, T know, drunk last night, but I am so- 
ber this moriiing. From the expressions Capt. 

mvvde use of to me, had 1 had nobody's weif.Te to care for 
btit my own, we should certainly have come, accord- 
ing to the manners of the world, to the necessity of 
murdering one another about the business. The words 
were such as, generally, I believe, end in a brace of 
pistols; but I am still pleased to think tliat I did not 



circumstance of riding" on the S;ibbatli-day is thus neatly in- 
troduced. 

** He sometimes i^-all'^ps on a Sunday, 

*' An' pricks the beast as it were Monday." 

E 



108 

ruin the peace and welfare of a wife and a family of 
children in a drunken squabble. Father, you know that 
the report of certain political opinions being mine, has 
already once before brought me to the brink of de- 
struction. 1 dread lest last night's business may be mis- 
represented in the same way. — You, 1 beg, will take i 
care to prevent it. 1 tax your wish for Mr. Burns's wel- 
fare with the task of waiting as soon as possible, on 
every gentleman who v/as present, and state this to 
him, and, as you please, shew him this letter. What, 
after all, was the obnoxious toast? " May our success j 
in the present war be equal to the justice of our cause." ' 
— A toast that the most outrageous frenzy of loyalty 
cannot object to. I request and beg that this morning 
you Vv'ill wait on the parties present at the foolish dis- 
pute. 1 shall only add, that 1 am truly sorry that a man ^ 

who stood so high in my estimation as Mr. , should 

use me in the manner in which 1 conceive he has 
done.* 



* At tliis period of our Poet's life, when political animosity 
was made the ground of private quarrel, the following foolish 
verses were sent as an attack on Burns a.nd his friends for their 
political opinions. They were written by some member of a 
club styling themselves the Loyal A^atives of Dumfries, or ra- 
ther by the united genius of that club, which was m.ore distin- 
guished for drunken loyalty, than either for respectability or 
poetical talent. The verses w ere handed over the table to Burns 
at a convivial meeting, and he instantly indorsed the subjoined 
Teply. 

The Loyal JVatives^ Verses. 

Ye sons of sedition give ear to my song, 
Let Syme, Burns, and Maxwell, pervade every throng, 
With, Craken the attorney, and Mundell the quack, 
Send Willie the monger to hell with a smack. 

Burns — extempore. 

Ye true ** Loyal Natives" attend to my song. 

In uproar and riot rejoice the night long; 

From envy and hatred your corps is exempt; 

But where is your shield from the darts of contempt f 



109 

No. LXVI. 
To Mr. ALEXANDER FINDLATER, 

Supervisor of Excise, Dumfries. 

SIR, 

INCLOSED are the two schemes. I would not 
have troubled you with the collector's one, but for sus- 
picion lest it be not right. Mr. Erskine promised me to 
make it right, if you will have the goodness to shew him 
how. As 1 have no copy of the scheme for myself, and 
the alterations being very considerable from what it was 
formerly, 1 hope that I shall have access to this scheme 
I send you, when I come to face up my new books. 
So much for schemes* — And that no scheme betray a 
FRIEND, or mislead a stranger ; to seduce a young 
oiRL, or rob a hen-roost; to subvert liberty, or 
bribe an exciseman ; to disturb the general assem- 
1BLY, or annoy a gossipping ; to overthrow the credit 
of ORTHODOXY, or the authority of OLD songs; to op- 
pose your wishes^ or frustrate my hop.es — may prosper 
-^is the sincere wish and prayer of 

ROBERT BURNS. 



110 

No. LXVIL 

TO THE EDITORS 

OF THE MORNING CHRONICLE.* 

Dumfries. 

GENTLEMEN, 

YOU will see by your subscribers* list, that 
1 have now been about iiiue mouths one of that num- 
ber. 

I am sorry to inform you, that in that time, seven 
or eight of your papers either have never been sent 
me, or else have never reached me. To be deprived 
of any one number of the first newspaper in Great 
Britain for information, ability and independance, is I 
what I can ill brook and bear; but to be deprived of 
that most admirable oration of the Marquis of Lans- 
downe, when he made the great, though ineffectual 



* This letter owes its orig-in to the following circumstance, 
A neig-hbour of the Poet's at Dumfries, called on him and com- 
plained that he was greatly disappointed in the irregular de- 
livery of the Paper of The Morning- Chronicle. Burns asked, 
'* Why do not you write to the Editors of the Paper?" Good 
God, Sir, can / presume to write to the learned Editors of a 
Newspaper? — Well, if you are afraid of writing- to the Editors 
of a Newspaper / am not; and if you think proper, I '11 draw lip 
a sketch of a letter, which you may copy. 

Burns tore a leaf from his excise book and instantly produced 
the sketch which! have transcribed, and wliich is here printed. 
The poor man thanked him, and took the letter home. How- 
-ever, that caution which the watchfulness of his enemies had 
taug-ht him to exercise, prompted him to the prudence of beg"- 
g-ing- a friend to wait on the person for whom it was written, 
«nd request the favor to have it returned. This request was 
complied with, and tlie paper never appeared in print. 



Ill 

attempt, (in the language of the poet, I fear too true,) 
«' to save a sinking state" — this was a loss which I 
neither can, nor will forgive you. — That paper, Gen- 
tlemen, never reached me; but I demand it of you. I 
am a briton; and must be interested in the cause of 
LIBERTY : — I am a man; and the rights of human 
NATURE cannot be indifferent to me. However, doiot 
let me mislead you : I am not a man in that situation 
of life, which, as your subscriber, can l:e of any con- 
sequence to you, in the eyes of those to whom situ- 
ation OF LIFE alone is the criterion of man. — I am 
but a plain tradesman, in this distant, obscure country 
town : but that humble domicile in which I shelter my 
wife and children, is the castellum of a briton; 
and that scanty, hard-earned income which supports 
them, is as truly my property, as the most magnificent 
fortune, of the most puissant member of your 

house of NOBLES. 

These, Gentlemen, are my sentiments; and to 
these I subscribe my name : and were I a man of abili- 
ty and consequence enough to address the public? 
with that name should they appear. 

lam, 8cc> 



No. LXVIII. 
To COL. W. DUNBAR. 

I AM not gone to Elysium, most noble Colonel^ 
but am still here in this sublunary world, serving my 
God by propagating his image, and honoring my king 
by begetting him loyal subjects. Many happy returns 
of the season await my friend ! May the thorns of care 
never beset his path ! May peace be an inmate of his 
bosom, and rapture a frequent visitor of his soul 1 May 
the blood-hounds of misfortune never trace his steps, 



112 

nor the screech-owl of sorrow alarm his dwelling 1 
May enjoyment tell thy hours, and pleasure nuniber 
thy days, thou friend of the Bard 1 Blessed be he thai 
blesseth thecj and cursed be he that curseth thee ! 



No. LXIX. 
To Mr. HERON, of Heron. 

SIR, 

I INCLOSE you some copies of a couple of 
political ballads; one of which, I believe, you have ne- 
ver seen. Would to Heaven I could make you master 
of as many votes in the Stewartry. But — 

" Who does the utmost that he can, 
" Does well, acts nobly, angels could no more." 

In order to bring my humble efforts to bear with 
more effect upon the foe, I have privately printed a 
good many copies of both ballads, and have sent them 
among friends all about the country. 

To pillory on Parnassus the rank reprobation of 
character, the utter dereliction of all principle, in a 
proffligate junto which has not only outraged virtue, 
but violated comnnon decency ; which, spurning even 
hypocrisy as paltry iniquity below their daring; — to 
unmask their flagitiousness to the broadest day — to 
deliver such over to their nmerited fate, is surely not 
merely innocent, but laudable ; is not only propriety, 
but virtue. — You have already, as your auxiliary, the 
sober detestation of mankind on the heads of your op- 
ponents; and I swear by the lyre of Thalia to muster 
on your side all the votaries of honest laughter, and 
fair, candid ridicule. 

I am extremely obliged to you for your kind men» 
tion of xny interests in a letter which Mr. Syme shew- 



113 

ed me. At present, my situation in life must be in e 
great measure stationary, at least for two or three 
years. The statement is this — I am on the supervisors' 
list, and as we come on there by precedency, in two 
or three years I shall be at the head of that list, and 
be appointed, of course. Then^ a friend might be of 
service to me in getting me into a place of the king- 
dom which I would like. A supervisor's income va- 
ries from about one hundred and twenty, to two hun- 
dred a year; but the business is an incessant drudge- 
ry, and would be nearly a complete bar to every spe- 
cies of literary pursuit. The moment I am appointed 
supervisor, in the common routine, I may be nomi- 
nated on the collector's list; and this is always a busi- 
ness purely of political patronage. A collectorship va- 
ries much, from better than two hundred a year to 
near a thousand. They also come forward by prece- 
dency on the list ; and have besides a handsome in- 
come, a life of complete leisure. A life of literary lei- 
sure with a decent competence, is the summit of my 
wishes. It w^ouid be the prudish affectation of silly pride 
in me to say that I do not need, or w^ould not be in- 
debted to a political friend ; at the same time, Sir, I 
by no means lay my affairs before you thus, to hook 
my dependant situation on your benevolence. If, in my 
progress of life, an opening should occur where the 
good offices of a gentleman of your public character and 
political consequence might bring me forward, I shall 
petition your goodness with the same frankness as I 
now do myself the honor to subscribe myself, Sec* 



* Part of this letter appears in Dr. Curriers edition^ vol ii> 
p. 430. 



L 2^ 



114 

No. LXX, 

ADDRESS 

OF 

THE SCOTS DISTILLERS, 

TO 

THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM PITT. 

SIR, 

WHILE pursy burgesses crowd your gate, 
toweating under the weight of heavy addresses, per- 
mit us, the quondam distillers in that part of Great- 
Britain called Scotland, to approach you, not with ve- 
nal approbation, but with fraternal condolence ; not as 
what you are just now, or for some time have been ; 

but as what, in all probability, you will shortly be 

We shall have the merit of not deserting our friends 
in the day of their calamity, and you will have the sa- 
tisfaction of perusing at least one honest address. You 
are 'well acquainted with the dissection of human na- 
ture ; nor do you need the assistance of a fellow-crea- 
ture's bosom to inform you, that man is always a self- 
ish, often a perfidious being. — This assertion, howe- 
ver the hasty conclusions of superficial observation 
may doubt of it, or the raw inexperience of youth may 
deny it, those who make the fatal experiment we have 
done, will feel. — You are a statesman, and consequent- 
ly are not ignorant of the traffic of these corporation 
compliments. — The little great man who drives the 
borough to market, and the very great man who buys 
the borough in that market, they two do the whole bu- 
siness ; and you well know, they, likewise, have their 
price With that sullen disdain wliich you can so 



115 

well assume, rise, illustrious Sir, and spurn these hire- 
ling efforts of venal stupidity. At best they are the 
compliments of a man's friends on the morning of his 
execution: They take a decent farewel ; resign you 
to your fate; and hurry away from your approaching 
hour. 

If fame say true, and omens be not very much mis- 
taken, you are about to make your exit from that 
world where the son of gladness gilds the path of 
prosperous men: permit us, great Sir, with the sym- 
pathy of fellow-feeling, to hail your passage to the 
realms oi ruin. 

Whether the sentiment proceed from the selfish- 
ness or cowardice of mankind is immaterial; but to 
point out to a child of misfortune those who are still 
more unhappy, is to give them some degree of posi- 
tive enjoyment. In this light. Sir, our downfall may be 
again of use to you : — Though not exactly in the same 
way, it is not perhaps the first time it has gratified 
your feelings. It is true, the triumph of your evil stcir 
is exceedingly despiteful. — At an age when others are 
the votaries of pleasure, or underlings in business, you 
had attained the highest wish of a British Statesman ; 
and with the ordinary date of human life, what a pros- 
pect was before you ! Deeply rooted in Royal Favovy 
you overshadowed the land. The birds of passage, 
which follow ministerial sunshine through every clime 
of political faith and manners, flocked to your branch- 
es ; and the beasts of the field, (the lordly possessors 
of hills and vallies,) crowded under your shade. '^ But 
behold a vvatcher, a holy one came down from the 
heaven, and cried aloud, and said thus: Hew down the 
tree, and cut off his branches ; shake off his leaves 
and scatter his fruit; let the beasts get away from 
under it, and the fowls from his branches!" A blow 
from an unthought-of quarter, one of those terrible 
accidents which peculiarly mark the hand of Omnipo- 
tence, overset your career, and laid all your fancied 
honors in the dust. But turn vour eves, Sir, to the tra- 



116 

gic scenes of our fate. — An ancient nation that for ma* 
ny ages had gallantly maintained the unequal struggle 
for independence with her much more powerful neigh- 
bour, at last agrees to a union which should ever after' 
make them one people. In consideration of certain: 
circumstances, it was covenanted that the former^ 
should enjoy a stipulated alleviation in her share of 
the public burdens, particularly in that branch of 
the revenue called the Excise. This just privilege hasi 
of late given great umbrage to some interested, pow-\ 
erful individuals of the more potent part of the em-r 
pire, and they have spared no wicked pains, under in- 
sidious pretexts, to subvert what they dared not open- 
ly attack, from the dread which they yet entertained, 
of the spirit of their ancient enemies. 

In this conspiracy we fell ; nor did we alone suffer;-, 
our country was deeply wounded. A number of (we 
-will say) respectable individuals, largely engaged in. 
trade, where we were not only useful but absolutely 
necessary to our country in her dearest interests; we, 
with all that was near and dear to us, were sacrificed 
without remorse, to tiie infernal deity of political ex- 
pediency! We fell to gratify the wishes of dark envy, 
and the views of unprincipled ambition! Your foes, 
Sir, were avowed; were too brave to take an ungene- 
rous advantage; you fell in the t'ace of day. — On thev 
contrary, our enemies, to complete our overthrow, 
contrived to make their guilt appear the villainy of a 
nation. — Your downfall only drags with you your pri-- 
vate friends and partisans : In our misery are more or 
less involved the most numerous, and most valuable 
part of the community — all those who immediately 
depend on the cultivation of the soil, from the landlord.^ 
of a province, down to his lowest hind. 

Allow us. Sir, yet farther, just to hint at another 
rich vein of comfort in the dreary regions of adversi- 
ty ; — the gratification of an approving conscience. In 
a certain great assembly^ of which you are a distin- 
guished member, panegyrics on your private virtues 



117 

have so often wounded your delicacy, that we shall 
not distress you with any thing on the subject. There 
is, however, one part of your public conduct which 
our feelings will not permit us to pass in silence ; our 
gratitude must trespass on your modesty ; we mean, 
worthy Sir, your whole behaviour to the Scots Distil- 
lers. — In evil hours, when obtrusive recollection pres- 
ses bitterly on the sense, let that. Sir, come like a 
healing angel, and speak the peace to your soul which 
fhe world can neither give nor take away. 

We have the honour to be, 

Sir, 

Your sympathiaing fellow-sufferers, 

And grateful humble Servants, 

JOHN BARLEYCORN—Pr^scs. 



118 

No. LXXI. 

To the Hon. the PROVOST, BAILIES and TOWN 
COUNCIL of Dumfries. 

GENTLEMEN, 

THE literary taste and liberal spirit of your 
good town has so ably filled the various departments 
of your schools, as to make it a very great object for a 
parent to have his children educated in them. Still, to 
me, a stranger, with my large family, and very stint- 
ed income, to give my young ones that education I 
wish, at the high school-fees which a stranger pays, 
will bear hard upon me. 

Some years ago your good town did me the honor of 
making me an honorary Burgess. — Will you allow me 
to request that this mark of distinction may extend so 
far, as to put me on the footing of a real freenian of 
the town, in the schools ? 

* * * * 

If you are so very kind as to grant my request,* it 
will certainly be a constant- incentive to me to straia 
every nerVe where I can officially serve you ; and will, 
if possible, increase that grateful respect with w^hich I 
have the honor to be. 

Gentlemen, 

Your devoted humble Servant. 



* This request was immediately complied with. 

I am happy to have an opportunity of mentioning, with great 
repect, Mr. James Gray. At the time of the Poet's death this 
gentleman was Rector of the Grammar School of Dumfries, 
and is now one of the Masters of the High School of Edin* 
burgh. He has uniformly exerted himself in the most benevo« 
lent manner, in the education and welfare of the Poet*s sona. . 

E. 



119 

No. LXXII. 

To Mr. JAMES JOHNSON, Edinburgh- 

Dumfries^ July 4, 1796. 

HOW are you, my dear friend, and how comes 
on your fifth volume ? You may probably think that 
for some time past I have neglected you and your 
work ; but, alas ! the hand of pain, and sorrow, and 
care, has these many months lain heavy on me 1 Per- 
sonal and domestic affliction have almost entirely ban- 
ished that alacrity and life with which I used to woo 
the rural muse of Scotia. 

* * * * 

You are a good, worthy, honest fellow, and have a 
good right to live in this world — because you deserve 
it. Many a m-erry meeting this publication has given 
us, and possibly it may give us more, though, alas ! I 
fear it. This protracting, slow, consuming illness 
which hangs over nie, will, I doubt much, my ever 
dear friend, arrest my sun before he has well reach- 
ed his middle career, and will turn over the Poet to far 
other and more important concerns than studying the 
brilliancy of wit, or the pathos of sentiment ! Howe- 
ver, hofie is the cordial of the human heart, and 1 en- 
deavour to cherish it as well as I can. 

Let m<3 hear from you as soon as convenient. — 
Your work is a great one; and now that it is near fi- 
nished, I see, if we were to begin again, two or three 
things that might be mended; yet I will venture to 
prophecy, that to future ages your publication will be 
the text book and standard of Scottish soni;- and music. 

1 am ashamed to ask another favor of y( u, bee. use 
you have been so very good already ; but my wife has 



120 

a very particular friend of hers, a young lady who 
sings well, to whom she wishes to present the Scots 
Musical Museum,'^ if you have a spare copy, will you 
be so obliging as to send it by the very first JFly^ as I 
am^anxious to have it soon. 

Yours ever, 

ROBERT BURNS. 



* In this humble and delicate manner did poor Burns ask 
for a copy of a work of which he was principally the founder^ 
and to which he had contributed, gratuitously^ not less than 
184 original^ altered, and collected songs ! The Editor has seen 
180 transcribed by his own hand, for the Museum. 

This Letter was written on the 4th of July, — the Poet died 
on the 21st. No other letters of this interesting period have 
been discovered, except one addressed to Mrs. Dunlop, of the 
12th of July, which Dr. Currie very properly supposes to be 
the last production of the dying Bard. E. 



STRICTURES 



ON 



Scottish Songs and Ballads^ 

ANCIENT AND MODERN; 

WITH 

\NECDOTES OF THEIR AUTHORS- 



" There needs na' be so great a phrase 
Wi' dringing dull Italian luys, 
I wad na gi'e our ain Strathspeys 

For half a hundred score o' em : 
They 're douff and dowie at the best, 
Douff and dowie, douff and dowie ; 
They 're douff and dowie at the best, 

Wi' a' their variorum : 
They 're douff and dowie at the best, 
Their Allegros, and a' the rest, 
They cannot please a Scottish taste, 

Compar'd wi' Tullochgorum." 

Rev, John Skinner. 



^ 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



The chief part of the following Remarks on Scottish '? 
A>ongs and Ballads exist in the hand^writing q/ Robert ' 
Burns, in an interleaved Copy in 4 Volumes^ Octavo^ 
o/* " Johnson's Scots Musical MusjiUM.'* Theif 
were written by the Poet for Captain Rjddel, of 
Glenriddel, whose Autograph the Volumes bear. — 
These valuable Volumes were left By Mrs. Riddel, to 
her Niece Miss Eliza Bayley, of Manchester, by 
whose kindness the Editor is enabled to give to the 
Public transcripts of this amusing and miscellaneous 
Collection. 



123 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF THE SONGS 
Introduced i?i the folloxoiiig Remarks. 



A Mother's Lament for the death of her Son 

A Rose-bud by my early Walk 

A Southland Jenny - - - - 

A waiikrife Minnie - - 

Absence - - - - ». 

Ah ! the poor Shepherd's mournful fate 

Allan Water - - - - - 

As I cam down by yon castle wall 

Auld lang" syne - - - - 

Auld Rob Morris 

Auld Robin Gray - - - - 

Bess the Gawkie 

Beware o' bonie Ann - - - 

Bide ye yet - - - 

Blink o'er the Burn, sweet Bettie - 

Blythe was she - - - 

Bob o' Dumblane - - - 

Ca' the Ewes to the Knowes - 
Cauld Kail in Aberdeen - - 
Cease, cease my dear friend to explore 
Clout the Caldron - - ^ 

Corn Rigs are bonie - - 
Craigie-burn Wood - - 

Crom let's lilt - - - 

Daintie Davie - - • 

Donald and Flora 

Down the burn, Davie - - 

Dumbarton Drums 

Duncan Grey - - . 

Eppie M'Nabb .... 
Fairest of the fair - - - 

Fife, and a' the Lands about it 
For a' that and a' that 
For lake of Gold 

Frae the Friends, and Land I love 
¥ye g-ae rub her o'er wi' Strae 
Galloway Tarn - - . 

Gill Morice - . . 

Go to the Ewe-bug-hts, Marion - 
Gramachree - . . 



190 
163 
182 
176 
162 
154 
140 
186 
177 
163 
172 

127 
167 
148 
142 
161 
191 

174 
156 
172 
129 
147 
178 
144 

190 
172 
142 
156 
156 

188 
135 
152 
177 
157 
179 
131 

185 
165 
146 

140 



124 



Here ^s a health to my true love 

H'c stole my tender heart away 

He V tutty taiti - - - - - 

Highland Laddie - - - - 

Hughie Graham - - - - - 

1 do confess thou art sae fair - ^ 

I dream'd I lay where flowers were sprmging 

I had a Horse and I had nae mair 

I love my Jean - - - 

I '11 never leave thee 

I 'm o'er young- to marry yet 

It is na, Jean, thy bonie face 

i wish my love were in a Mire - 

Jamie come try me 

Jamie Gay - - - - 

Jockie's g"ray breeks 

Johnie Cope - - - 

Jolmie Faa, or the Gypsie Laddie 

John Hay's bonnie Lassie 

John o' Biidenyond - - - 

KiUecrankie 

Kirk wad let me be - - 

Liiddie lie near me 

Leader Haughs and Yarrow - 

Lewis Gordon - - - 

Lord Ronald my Son 

Mary's Dream - - - 

Mary Scott, the flower of Yarrow 

May Eve, or, Kate of Aberdeen 

Mill, Mill, O - - - . 

My ain kind dearie — O 

My bonnie Mary - - - 

M'Pherson's farew^el 

My Dearie, if thou die 

My dear Jockie - - - 

My Harry was a gallant gay 

My Heart 's in the Highlands 

My Jo, Janet - - . - 

My Tocher 's the Jewel 

Musing on the roaring Ocean 

Nancy's Ghost - - - 

O were I on Parnassus' Hill 

O'er the Moor amang the Heather 

Oh, ono Chrio - - 

Oh, open the Door, Lord Gregory 

Polwarth on the Green 



157 

135 
158 
134 
180 



125 



Rjittlln', roarin' Willie . - • - 


164 


Ravin Winds around her blowing - 


- 158 


Roslin Castle - - - - - 


128 


Sac merry as we twa hae been 


- 144 


Saw ye Johnnie cummin ? quo' she 


129 

- 130 

. . 146 


Saw ye my Peg'g'y? - - - - - 


She rose and let me in - - - - 


Since robb'd of all that charm'd my views 


- 159 


Strathallan's Lament - - - - 


152 


Strephon and Lydia - - - - - 


- 149 


Tak your auld Cloak about ye - - - 


158 


Tarry woo - - - - - ' 


- 140 


The banks of the Tweed - - - 


128 


banks of the Devon - - - - 


. 154 


banks of Forth - - - - 


144 


beds of sweet Roses - - - • 


- 128 


birks of Aberfeldy - - - - 


151 


black Eagle - - - - • 


- 171 


blaithrie o't - - - - - 


135 


blithsome bridal - - - ■ 


- 143 


bonie banks of A3T - • - - 


175 


bonie brucket lassie - - 


. 143 


bonie lass made the bed to me 


162 


bonie wee Thing - - 


. 190 


bridal o't - - - - - 


174 


braes 0' Ballochmyle - - - • 


. 174 


bush aboon Traquair 


144 


captive Ribband - - - • 


- 172 


collier's bonnie Lassie 


141 


day returns, my bosom burns 


- 169 


ewie wi' the crooked Horn 


178 


flowers of Edinburgh 


- 130 


gaberlunzie Man - - - 


170 


gardener wi' his Paidle 


- 169 


, gentle Swain - - - ^ 


135 


lappy Marriage - - - ■ 


- 133 


highland Character - - - - 


167 


highland Lassie, - - - ■ 


^ 151 


highland Queen - - - - 


127 


lass of Liviston - - - • 


- 132 


lass of Peaty's Mill - - - - 


133 


last time I cam o'er the Moor 


- 132 


lazy Mist - - - - - 


171 


Maid that tends the Goats 


- 139 


mucking of Geordie's Byar 


148 


posie - - - - 


. 138 


rantin Dog the Daddie o't - - - 


174 


m2 





126 



The Shepherd's Comphimt - - - - 

Slicpherd's Preference 

Sog'er Laddie - - - - • - 

Tailor fell thro' the Bed, thimble an' a* - 
tears I shed must ever fidl - - - 

tears of Scotland - - - - 

tither morn - - > - 

turnimspike - - - - - 

young- Man's Dream - - - - 

Then Guidwife count-the La win 

Tlicre '11 never be peace *tiil Jamie comes hame 

There 's a Youth in this City - - - 

There 's nne luck about the House 

This is no mine ain House - - - 

Thou art g-ane awa - - . - - 

Tiblxe Dunbar - - - - - 

Tibbie 1 hae seen the Day 

To daunton me - - - 

To the Rose-bud - - - 

To the Weavers gin ye g-o 

Todlcn Hame - - - 

Tranent Muir - . . 

Tullochg'orum - - - 

Tune your Fiddles 

Tweedside - - - - 

Up and warn a' Willie - - 
Up in the morning early - - 

Waly,Waly 

Waukin o' the Fauld - - - 

We ran, and they ran - - 

Were na my Heart light I wad die 

Wha is that at my Bower Door? 

What will 1 do gin my doggie die? - 

When I upon thy bosom lean 

Where braving angry Winter's Storms 

Where wad bonie Annie lie? 

Willie brev/'d a peck o' Maut 

Ye Gods, was Strephon's picture blest? 

Yon wild mossy Mountains 

Young Damon - . - 



150 
175 

185 
167 
189 
153 
190 
133 
152 
183 
183 
172 
140 
168 
189 
165 
164 
161 
187 
149 
174 
148 
177 
164 
137 

163 
153 

155 
148 
155 
152 
189 
153 
166 
164 
185 
177 
159 
187 
159 



" In the changes of language these Songs 7nay no doubt suffer 
change; but the associated strain of Seiitiment and of JVIusic 
Toill perhaps survive^ ivhile the clear stream sweeps dotvn the 
Yale of Yarrow, or the yelloiv broom -waves on the C owe en 
Knowes." Dr. Currie. 



STRICTURES, &0. 



The Highland Queen, 

The Highland Queen, music and poetry, was com- 
posed by Mr. M* Vicar, purser of the Solbay man of 
'Aar. — This I had from Dr. Blacklock. 



Bess the Gatvkie, 

This song shews that the Scottish Muses did not 
all leave us when we lost Ramsiiy and Oswald,* as I 
have good reason to believe that the verses and m.usic 
are both posterior to the days of these two gentlemen. 
— It is a beautiful song, and is the genuine Scots taste. 
We have few pastoral compositions, I mean the pas-^ 
toral of nature, that are equal to this. 



0/f, open the Door^ Lord Gregory. 

It is somewhat singular, that in Lanark, Renfrew, 
Ayr, Wigton, Kirkcudbright, and Dumfries-shires, 
there is scarcely an old song or tune which, fiom the 
title, kc. can be guessed to belong to, or be the pro- 
duction of these countries. This, I conjecture, is one 
of these very few ; as the ballad, which is a long one, 



* Oswald was a music^seller in London, about the year 
1750. He published a larg-e collection of Scottish tunes, winch 
Ik called the Caledonian Pocket Companion. Mr. Tyiler ob- 
serves, that his genus in composition, joined to his taste in 
fhe performance of Scottish music., wa« natural and ]nithetic. 

KllSON. 



128 

is called, both by tradition and printed collections jj 
" The Li.ss o' Lochroyan,'^ which I take to be Loch-^ 
royan, in Galloway. : 



The Banks of the Tweed, 

This song is one of the many attempts that English 
composers have made to imitate the Scottisli manner, 
and which 1 shall in these strictures, beg leave to dis- 
tinguish by the appellation of Anglo-Scottish produc- 
tions. The music is pretty good, but the verses are 
just above contempt. 

The Beds of sweet Roses. 

This song, as far as I know, for the first time ap- 
pears here in print — When 1 was a boy, it was a very 
popular song in Ayrshire. I remember to have heard 
those fanatics, the Buchanites,* sing some of their 
nonsensical rhymes, which they dignily with the name 
of hymns, to this air.f 



Roslin Castle. 

These beautiful verses were the production of a 
Richard Hewit^ a young man that Dr. Biacklock, to 

* A set of itinerant fanatics in the West of Scotland, so de- 
nominated from their leader, Mrs. Buchan. 

I Shakspeare, in his Winter's Tale, speaks of a Piintan who ^ 
" sings psalms to hornpipes." 

i Richard Hewit, Ritson observes, was taken when a boy, 
during- the residence of Dr. Biacklock in Cumberland, to lead 
him. — He addressed a copy of verses to the Doctor on quit- 
ting his service. — Among the verses are the following lines : 

" How oft these plains I 've thoughtless prest; 
"Whistled or sung some Fair distrest, 
" When fate would .steal a tear." 

"Alluding," as it is said in a note, "to a sort of narrative 
^ongs, which make no inconsiderable part of the innocent 



12f 

whom I am indebted for the anecdotCi kept for some 
years as an amanuensis. I do not know who is the iAii- 
thor of the second song to the tune, 'i ytler, in his 
amusing history of Scots music, gives the air to Os- 
wald ; but in Oswald's own collection of Scots tunes, 
where he affixes an asterisk to those he himself com- 
posed, he does not make the least claim to the tune. 



Savj ye Johnnie conimin ? quo* she. 

This song for genuine humour in the verses, and 
lively originality in the air, is unparalleled. 1 take it 
to be very old. 



Clout the Caldron, 

A tradition is mentioned in the Bee^ that the se- 
cond Bishop Chishoim, of Dunblane, used to say. that 
if he were going to be hanged, nothing would soothe 
his mind so much by the way, as to hear Clout the 
Caldron played. 

I have met with another tradition, that the old song 
to this tunc 

♦' Hae ye ony pots or pans, 
*' Or onie broken chanlers,'* 

was composed on one of the Kenmure family, in the 
Cavjalier times; and alluded to an amour he had, 
while under hiding, in the disguise of an itinerant 
tinker. The air is also known by the name of 

<* The Blacksmith and his Apron,'' 

which from the rhythm, seems to have been a line of 
some old song to the tune. 



amusements with which the country people pass the wintry 
nights, und which the author of the present piece was a faitli- 
ful rehearser." 

Blacklock's Peemsy 1756; ^vo.p. 5 



130 

Saw ye my Peggy » 

This charminj^ song is much older, and indeed su- 
perior to Rinisay's verses, '' The Toast," as he calls 
them. There is another set of the words, much older 
stiil, and which I take to be the original one, butj 
though it has a very great deal of merit it is not quite^ 
ladies' reading. ' 

The original words, for they can scarcely be called 
verses, seem to be as follows ; a song familiar from the^ 
cradle to every Scottish ear. » 

Saw ye my Maggie, { 

Saw ye my Maggie, J 

Saw ye my Maggie ' \ 

Linkin o'er the lea ? '[ 

High kilted was she, 
High kilted was she, 
High kilted was she. 

Her coat aboon her knee. 

What mark has your Maggie, 
What mark has your Maggie, 
What mark has your Maggie 

That ane may ken her be? (by) 

Though it by no means follows that the silliest 
verses to an dr must, for that reason, be the original 
song; yet I take this ballad, of v/hich I have quoted 
part, to be the old verses, the two songs in Ramsay^ 
x>ne of them evidently his own, are never to be met 
with in the fire-side circle of our peasantry ; while that 
which I take to be the old song, is in every shepherd's 
mouth. Ramsay, I suppose, had thought the old verses 
unworthy a place in his collection. 



77/<? Flovjers of Edinburglu 

This song is one of the many effusions of Scots ja- 
0obitism.~The title, '' Flowers of Edinburgh,'* has 



131 

IK) manner of connection with the present verses, so f 
suspect there has heen an older set of words, of which 
the title is all that remains. 

By the bye, it is singular enough that the Scottish 
Muses were all Jacobites. — 1 have paid more attention 
to every description of Scots soni^s than perhaps any 
body living has done, and 1 do not recollect one single 
jstanza, or even the title of the most trifling Scots air, 
which has the least panegyrical reference to the fami- 
lies of Nassau or Brunswick ; while there are hun- 
dreds s.itiiizing them. — This may be thought no pa- 
negyric on the Scots Poets, but I mean it as such. 
For myself, I would always take it as a compliment to 
have it Sciid, that my heart ran before my head. — And 
surely the gallant, though unfortunate house of 
Stewart, the kings of our fathers for so many heroic 
ages, is a theme * ** * *•*# 

* }*t * 



Jamie Gay. 

Jamie Gay is another and a tolerable Anglo-Scot- 
tish piece. 



My dear Jockle, 
Another Anglo-Scottish production. 



Fye^ gae rub her o^er wi^ Strac, 

It is self-evident that the first four lines of this song 
are part of a song more ancient thai^ Ramsay's beauti- 
ful \eises which are annexed to them. As mu^iic is 
the language of nature; and poetry, particularly songs^ 
are always less or more localized (if 1 may be allowed 
the verb) by some of the modifications of time and 
place, this is the reason why so many of our bcots airs 
have ouuiscd their original, and perhaps many subse- 



132 

^uent sets of verses; except a single name, or phrase, 
or sometimes one or two lines, simply to distinguish 
the tunes by. 

To this day among people who know nothing oi 
Ramsay's verses, the foliowing is the souk^, and all the 
»ong that ever I heard : — 

Gin ye meet a bonie lassie, 

Gie her a kiss and let her gae; 
But gin ye meet a dirty hizzie, 

Fye, gae rub her o'er wi' strae. 

Fye, gae rub her, rub her, rub her, 
Fye, gae rub her o'er wi' strue : 

An' gin ye meet a dirty hizzie, 
Fye, gae rub her o'er wi' strae. 



The Lass o' Liviston, 

The old song, in three eight line stanzas, is wet. 
known, and has merit as to wit and humour; but it is 
rather unfit for insertion. — It begins, 

The bonie lass o' Liviston, 

Her name ye ken, her name ye ken, ' 
And she has written in her contract, 

To lie her lane, to lie her lane. 
Sec. Sec. 



The last Time I came o^er the Moor, 

Ramsay found the first line of this song, which ha^ 
been preserved as the title of the charming air, cind 
then composed the rest of the verses to suit that line* 
This has always a finer effect than composing Eng- 
lish words, or words with an idea foreign to the spi- 
rit of the old title. Where old titles of songs convey 
any idea at all, it will generally be found to be quite in 
the spirit of the air. 



133 

Jockita Gray Breekii. 

Though this has certainly every evidence of being 
a Scottish air, yet there is a well known tune and song 
in the north of Ireland, called The Weaver and his 
Shuttle O, which though sung much quicker, is every 
note the very tune. 



The Hafifiy Marriage, 
Another, but very pretty, Anglo -Scottish piece. 



The Lass of Peaty' s MilL 

In Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, this 
song is localized (a verb I must use for want of ano- 
ther to express my idea) somewhere in the north of 
Scotland, and likewise is claimed by Ayrshire — The 
following anecdote I had from the present sir William 
Cunningham of Robertland, who had it from the last 
John Earl of Loudon. — The then Earl of Loudon and 
father to Earl John before mentioned, had Ramsay at 
Loudon, and one day walking together by the banks of 
Irvine water, near New-Mills, at a place yet called 
Peaty's Mill, they were struck with the appearance of 
a beautiful country girl. His lordship observed that 
she would be a fine theme foi a song. — Allan lagged 
behind in returning to Loudon Castle, and at dinner 
produced this identical song.* 



Tlie Turnimsjiike^ 

There is a stanza of this excellent song for local 
humour, omitted m this set, — where I have placed the 

asterisms.t 



* This anecdote is somewhat differentlj^ told in Dr. Carrie's 
ed. vol. iv. No. 19. 

f Burns has placed the asterisms between the 9th and 10th 



134 

They tak the horse then by te head, 
Aiid tore tey mak her stan', man; 

Me tell tem, me hae seen te day, 
Tey no had sic comman', man. 



Highland Laddie, 

As this was a favorite theme with our later Scottish 
muses, there are several airs and songs of that name. 
That which I take to be the oldest, is to be found 
in the Mu,sical Musaim^ beginning, " I hae been at 
Crookie-den." — One reason for my thinking so is, 
that Oswald has it in his collection by the name of, 
*' The auld Highland Laddie." — It is also known by 
the name of '' Jinglan Johnie,^' which is a well-known 
song of four or five stanzas, and seems to be an ear- 
lier song than Jacobite times. — As a proof of this, it 
is little known to the peasantry by the name of" High- 
land Laddie;" while every body knows '' Jinglan Joh- 
nie." The song begins 

Jinglan John, the meickle man, 

He met wi' a lass was blythe and bonie. 

Another Highland Laddie is also in the Museum, 
vol. V, which 1 take to be Ramsay's original, as he has 
borrowed the chorus — " O my bonie Highland lad, 
kc." It consists of three stanzas, besides the chorus; 
and has humour in its composition — it is an excellent 
but somewhat licentious song. — It begins 

As I cam o'er Cairney-Mount, 

And down amang the blooming heather, 8cc. 

This air, and the common Highland Laddie, seem only 
to be different sets. 

Another Highland Laddie, also in the Museum, 
vol. V, is the tune of several Jacobite fragments. — One 
of these old songs to it, only exists, as far as 1 know. 
in these four lines— 



135 

Whare hae ye been a day, 

Bonie laddie, Highland laddie? 
Down the back o' Bell's brae, 

Courtin Maggie, courtin Maggie. 

Another of this name is Dr. Arne's beautiful air, 
called, the new Highland Laddie.* 



The Gentle Swain, 

To sing such a beautiful air to such execrable verses, 
is downrigiit * * * of common sense 1 The Scots 
verses indeed are tolerable. 



He stole my tender Heart away. 

This is an Anglo-Scottish production, but by no 
means a bad one. 



Fairest of the Fair, 

It is too barefaced to take Dr. Percy's charming 
song, and by the means of changing a few English 
words into Scots, to offer to pass it for a Scots song. 
— 1 was not acquainted wath the Editor until the first 
volume was nearly finished, else, had I known in time, 
I would have prevented such an impudent absurdity. 



The Blaithrie oV.f 
The following is a set of this song, which was the 
earliest song I remember to, have got by heart. When 

* The following- observation was found in a memorandum 
book belons^ing to the poet. 

The Highlaiidcrs* Prayer, at SheriJf'^Muir. 
** O L— d be thou with us ; but if thou be not with us, be not 
ag'ainst us ; but leave it hetr^-een the red coats and us /" 

-|- *' Shame fall the geer and the blad^ry o*ty^ is the turn of an 
old Scottish song", spoken when a young* handsome girl mar> 
ties an old man, upon the account of his wealth. 

Kelly's Scots Proverbs, p. 296, 



136 

a child, an old woman sung it to me, and I picked it 
up, every word, at first hearing. 

Willy weel I mind, I lent you my hand 

To sing' you a song which you did me command ; 
But my memory 's so bad, I had almost forgot 
That you called it the gear and the blaithrie o't. — 

i '11 not sing about confusion, delusion, or pride, 
i '11 sing about a laddie was for a virtuous bride ; 
For virtue is an ornament that time will never rot. 
And preferable to gear and the blathrie o't. — 

Tho' my lassie hae nae scarlets or silks to put on, 
We envy not the greatest that sits upon the throne; 

1 wad rather hae my lassie tho' she cam in her smock, 
Than a princess wi' the gear and the blathrie o't.— 

Tho' we hae nae horses or minzie* at command, 
We will toil on our foot, and we '11 work wi' our , 

hand ; 
And when wearied without rest, we '11 find it sweet 

in any spot, 
And we '11 value not the gear and the blathrie o't. — 

- If we hae ony babies, we '11 count them as lent ; 
Hae we less, hae we mair, we will ay be content ; 
For they say they hae mair pleasure that wins but a 

groat, 
i'han the miser wi' his gear and the blathrie o't. — 

[ '11 not meddle wi' th' affairs o' the kirk or the 

queen ; 
They 're nae matters for a sang, let them siiik, let 

them swim, 
On your kirk I '11 ne'er encroach, but 1 '11 hold it still 

remote, 
. Sae tak this for the gear and the blathrie o't. 



* Minzie — retinue — followers - 



137 



]\Iaij~Eve^ or Kate of Aberdccji. 

Kate of Aberdeen, is, I helievci the work of poor 
Cunningham the player; of whom the following anec- 
dote, though told before, deserves a recital. A fat dig- 
nitary of the church coming past Cunningham one 
Sunday as the poor poet was busy plying a fishing-rod 
in some stream near Durham, his native country,* his 
reverence reprimanded Cunningham very severely for 
such an occupation on such a day. The poor poet, with 
that inoffensive gentleness of manners, which was his 
peculiar characteristic, replied, that he hoped God and 
his reverence would forgive his seeming profanity of 
that sacred day, " as he had no dinner to cat^ but what 
lay at the bottom of that fiool!^^ This, Mr. Woods, the 
player, who knew Cunningham well, and esteemed 
him much, assured me was true. 



Tnveed'Side, 

In Ramsay's Tea-table Miscellany, he tells us, that 
about thirty of the songs in that publication were the 
works of some young gentlemen of his acquaintance ; 
which songs are marked with the letters D, C, Sec. — 
Old Mr. Tytler, of Woodhouselee, the worthy and 
able defender of the beauteous queen of Scots, told mc 
that the songs marked C, in the Tea-table^ were the 
composition of a Mr. Crawford, of the house of Ach- 
names, who w^as afterwards unfortunately drowned 
coming from France. — As Tytler was most inti- 
mately acquainted with Allan Ramsay, I think the 
anecdote may be depended on. Of consequence, the 
beautiful song of Tweed-Side, is Mr. Crawford's, and 
indeed does great honor to his poetical talents. He was 
a Robert Crawford ; the Mary he celebrates, was a 



'' Cunning'haTn was n iKitlve of Ireland. — See l)r. Anderson' 
V r,f Cu'inhij^'haviy Briii^^h Poets, vol. x-. 



138 

Mary Stewart, of the Castle-Milk family,* aftcrwar.'i 
Tiianicd to a Mr. John Ritchie. 

I have seen a song, calling itself the original Tweed- 
Side, and said to have been composed by a Lord Ycs- 
ter. It consisted of two stanzas, of which I still recol- 
lect the first. — 

When Maggy and I was acquaint, 

I carried my noddle fu' hie ; 
Nae lintwhite on a* the green plain, 

Nor gowdspink sae happy as me : 
But I saw her sae fair, and I lo'ed ; 

I woo'd, but I came nae great speed; 
So now I maun wander abroad. 

And lay my banes far frae the Tweed 



The J^osie, 

It appears evident to me that Oswald composed hiij 
KosLin Castle on the modulation of this air. — In the 
second part of Oswald's, in the three first bars, he has 
cither hit on a wonderful similarity to, or else he has 
entirely borrowed the three first bars of the old air ; 
and the close of both tunes is almost exactly the same. 
The old verses to which it was sung, when I took 
down the notes from a country girl's voice had no 
great merit. — The following is a specimen : 

There was a pretty mayt and a milkin she went; 

Wi' her red rosy cheeks, and her coal-black hair: 
Vnd she has met a young man a comin o'er the bent^ 

With a double and adieu to thee fair may. 

O where are ye goin, my ain pretty may, 

Wi' thy red rosy cheeks, and thy coal-black hair I 

Unto the yowes a milkin, kind sir, she says. 
With a double and adieu to thee fair may. 

* If the reader refers to the note in page 141, he will there 
find that Mr. JValter Scott states this song to have been writ- 
^n in honor of another lady, a jMiss JMarij JUllati Scott. 

\ J^Iazf-^M ai d—Youn g- Worn an. 



139 

What if I g;ang alang wi' thee, my ain pretty may, 
Wi' thy red rosy cheeks, and thy coal-black hair t 

Wad I be aught the warse o' that, kind sir, she says^ 
With a double and adieu to thee fair may. 

Sec. See. 



JVTary^s Dream* 

The Mary here alluded to is generally supposed to 
ae Miss Mary Macghie, daughter to the Laird of 

\irdsj in Galloway. The Poet was a Mr. Alexander. 

.owe, who likewise wrote another beautiful song, call- 
vl Pompey's Ghost. — I have seen a poetic epistle 
from him in North America, where he now is, or late- 
ly was, to a lady in Scotland — By the strain of the 
verses, it appeared that they allude to some love dis- 
appointment. 



The Maid that tends the Goats, 

By Mr. Dudg-eon. 

This Dudgeon is a respectable farmer's son in Ber- 
wickshire. 



/ 'ivish my Love were in a Mire, 

I never heard more of the v/ords of this old song 
than the title. 



^ This is the pathetic song beginning — 

•* The moon had climb'd the highest hill, 

AVhich rises o'er the source of Dee, 
And from the eastern summit shed 

Her silver light on tow'r and tree : 
When Mary laid her down to sleep. 

Her thoughts on Sandy far at sea; 
When soft and low a voice was beard, 

Saying, Mary weep no more for mc." 



140 

Allan Water, 

This Allan Water, which the composer of the mu- 
sic has honored with the name of the air, I have been 
told is Allan Water, in Strathallan. 



There 's nae Luck about the House, 

^ This is one of the most beautiful songs in the 
Scots, or any other language. — The two lines, 

" And will I see his face again 1 
^' And will I hear him speak 1" 

as well as the two preceding ones, are unequalled al- 
most by any thing I ever heard or read : and the lines, 

'- The present moment is our ain, 
" The neistwx never saw" — 

are worthy of the first poet. It is long posterior to Ram- 
say's days. — About the year 1771, or 72, it came first 
on the streets as a ballad ; and I suppose the compo- 
sition of the song was not much anterior to that period. 



Tarry Woo, 

This is a very pretty song; but I fancy that the first 
half stanza, as well as the tune itself, are much older 
than the rest of the words. 



Gramachree, 

The song of Gramachree v/as composed by a Mr. 
Poe, a counsellor at law in Dublin. This anecdote I 
had from a gentleman who knew the lady, the "Mol- 
ly," who is the subject of the song, and to whom Mr. 
Poe sent the first manusciipt of his most beautiful 
verses, I do not remember any single line that has 
more true pathos than — 

'* Ho vv can she break that honest heart that wears her 
in its core V^ 



141 

But as the song is Irish, it had nothine^to do in this 
r ollection. 



The Collier^s Bonie Lassie, 

The first half stanza is much older than the days of 
Ramsay. — The old words began thus : 

The collier has a dochter, and, O, she 's wonder bonie ! 
A laird he was that sought her, rich baith in lands and 

money. 
She wad na hae a laird, nor wad she be a lady ; 
But she wad hae a collier, the color o' her daddie. — 



My ain kind Dearie — O, 

The old words of this song are omitted here, though 
much more beautiful than these inserted ; which were 
mostly composed by poor Fcrgusson, in one of his 
merry humors. — The old words began thus: 

I Ml rowe thee o'er the lea-rig, 

My ain kind dearie, O, 
I '11 rowe thee o'er the lea-rig, 

My ain kind dearie, O, 
Atho' the night were ne'er sae wat, 

And 1 were ne'er sae weary, O, 
I '11 rowe thee o'er the lea-rig, 

My ain kind dearie, O. — 



Mary Scott^ the Flower of Yarrow,* 

Mr. Robertson, in his statistical account of the pa- 
rish of wSelkirk, says, that Mary Scott, the Flower of 
Yarrow, was descended from the Dryhope, and mar- 

* A very interesting account of " The Flower of Yarrow" 
appears in a note to Mr. Walter Scott's '' Marmion.'* The 
Editor has so often experienced that gentleman's obliging 
disposition, that he presumes on his pardon for transcribing it. 

'* Near tlie lower extremity of St. Mary's Lake, (a beautiful 



142 

ried into the Harden family. Her daughter was marri- 
ed to a predecessor of the present Sir Francis Elliot 
of Stobbs, and of the late Lord Heathfield. 

There is a circumst uice in their contract of mar- 
riap:e that merits attention, as it strongly marks (he 
predatory spirit of the times. — The father-in-law 
agrees to keep his daughter, for some time after the 
marriage; for which the son-in-law binds himself to 
give him the profits of the first Michaelmas-moon !* 



Dow72 the Burn^ Davie. 

I have been informed that the tune of " Down the 
Burn, Davie," was the composition of David Maigh, 
keeper of the blood slough hounds, belonging to the 
Laird of Riddel, in Tweeddale. 



Blink o'er the Burn^ sweet Bettie. 

The old words, all that I remember are, — 

Blink over the burn^ sweet Betty, 

It is a cauld winter night; 
It rains, it hails, it thunders. 

The moon she gies nae light : 

sheet of water, forming the reservoir from which the Yarrow 
takes its source,) are the ruins of Dryhope tower, the birth- 
phice of jMary Scott, daug-hter of Philip Scott of Dryhope, 
and fiimous by the traditional name of the Flower of Yarrow. 
She w^s married to Walter Scott of Harden, no less renowned 
for his depredations, than his bride for her beauty. Her ro- 
mantic appellation was, in latter days, with equal justice, con- 
ferred on Miss Mary Lilias Scott, the last of the elder branch 
of the Harden family." Mr. Scott proceeds to relate that " he 
well rem.embers the talent and spirit of the latter Flower of 
Yarrow, though age had then injured the charms which pro- 
cured her the name; and that the words usually sung to the 
air of "Tweed-side," beginning, 'What beauties does Flora 
disclose,' were composed in her honor." > 

JVotes ^0 Canto II, p. 3S. 

* The time when the moss-troopers and "cattle-drivers on 
the borders, begin their nightly depredations. 



143 

It *s a' for the sake o' sweet Betty, 

That ever I tint my way; 
Sweetj let me lie beyond thee 

Until it be break o' day. — 
O, Betty will bake my bread, 

And Betty will brew my ale. 
And Betty will be my love, 

When I come over the dale : 
Blink over the burn, sweet Betty, 

Blink over the burn to me, 
And while I hue life, dear lassie, 

My ain sweet Betty thpu's be. — 



The Blithsovie Bi^idaL 

I find the Blithsome Bridal, in James Watson's col- 
lection of Scots poems, printed at Edinburgh, in 1706. 
This collection, the publisher says, is the first of its 
nature which has been published in our own native 
Scots dialect — it is now extremly scarce. 



John Hai/s Bonie Lassie, 

John Hay's Bonie Lassie was daughter of John Hay, 
Earl or Marquis of Tv»' eddale, and late Countess Dow- 
ager of Roxburgh. — She died at Broomlands, near 
Kelso, some time between the years 1720 and 1740. 



The Bonie Brucket Lassie, 

The two first lines of this song are all of it that is 
old. The rest of the song, as well as those songs in 
the Museum marked T, are the works of an obscure, 
tippling, but extraordinary body of the name of Tyt- 
ler, commonly known by the name of Balloon Tytler, 
from his having projected a ballon: A mortal, who 
though he drudges about Edinburgh as a common 
printer, with leaky shoes, a sky-lighted hat, and knee- 
buckles as unlike as Georgc-by-lhe-gracc-of-God, and 



144 

Solomon-tli£-Son-of-David ; yet that same unknown 
drunken mortal is author and compiler of three-fourths 
of Elliot's pompous Encyclopedia Britannica, which 
he composed at half a guinea a week I* 



Sae merry as we twa ha'e been. 

This song is beautiful.— The chorus in particular is 
truly pathetic. I never could learn any thing of its au- 
ihoY, 

Chorus. 

Sae merry as we twa ha^e heen^ 

Sa-€ mei^ry as we twa- ha^e been; 
My heart it is like for to breaks 

When I think on the days we ha^e seen. 



The Banks of Forth. 
This air is Oswald's. 



The Bush aboon Traquair, 

This is another beautiful song of Mr. Crawford's 
composition. In the neighbourhopd of Traquair, tra- 
dition still shews the old '' Bush;" which, when I saw 
it in the year 1787, was composed of eight or nine 
ragged birches. The Earl of Traquair has planted a 
clump of trees near by, which he calls " The new 
Bush." 



Crornlet^s Lilt, 

The following interesting account of this plaintive" 
dirge was communicated to Mr. Riddel by Alexander 
Frazer Tytler, Esq of Woodhouselee. 



* A short sketch of this eccentric character may be seen at 
the end of these Remarks on the Scottish Songs. 



145 

'♦ In the latter end of the 1 6th century, the Chisoims 
were proprietors of the estate of Cromleck (now pos- 
sessed by the Driimmonds). The eldest son of that fa- 
mily was very much attached to a daughter of Ster- 
ling of Ardoch, commonly knowii- by the name of Fair 
Helen of Ardoch — 

" At that time the opportunities of meeting betwixt 
the sexes were more rare, consequently more sought 
after than now ; and the Scottish ladies, far from prid- 
ing themselves on extensive literature, were thought 
sufficiently book-learned if they could make out the 
Scriptures in their mother tongue. Writing was en 
tirely out of the line of female education : At that pe- 
riod the most of our young men of family sought a 
fortune, or found a grave, in France. Cromlus, when 
he went abroad to the war, was obliged to leave the 
management of his correspondence with his mistress 
I to a lay brother of the monastry of Dumblain, in the 
' immediate neighbourhood of Cromleck, and near Ar- 
doch. This man, unfortunately, was deeply sensible of 
Helen's charms. He artfully prepossessed her with 
, stories to the disadvantage of Cromlus; and by misin- 
' terpreting or keeping up the letters and messages in- 
I trusted to his care, he entirely irritated both. All con- 
nection was broken off betwixt them: Helen was in- 
, consoiable, and Cromlus has left behind him, in the 
ballad called Cromiet^s Liit, a proof of the elegance of 
i his genius, as well as the steadiness of his love. 
I " When the artful monk thought time had suffi- 
i cientiy softened Helen's sorrow, he proposed himself 
I as a lover : Helen was obdurate : but at last, overcome 
by the persuasions of her brother with whom she 
I lived, and who, having a family of thirty-one children, 
] was probc'.bly very well pleased to get her off his hands. 
' —She submitted, rather than consented to the cere- 
I mony ; but there her compliance ended; and, when 
t^ forcibly put into bed. she started quite frantic from it, 
I screamin- out that after three gentle taps on the wain- 
I scot, at the bed head, she heard Cromlus's voice, cry- 



146 

ing Helen^ Helen^ mind me, Cromlus soon after coming 
home, the treachery of the confident was discovered, 
— her marriage disannulled, — and Helen became lady 
Cromiecks." 

N. B. Marg. Murray, mother to these thirty-one 
children, was daughter to Murray of Strewn, one of 
the seventeen sons of Tullybardine, and whose young- 
est son, commonly called the Tutor of Ardoch, died 
in the year 1 7 15 j^ aged 111 years. 



Mif Dearie^ if thou die. 
Another beautiful song of Crawford's. 



8he rose and let me in. 

The old set of this song, which is still to be found 
in printed collections, is much prettier than this ; but 
somebody, I believe it was Ramsay, took it into his 
head to clear it of some seeming indelicacies, and 
made it at once chaste and more dull. 



Go to the Ewe-bughts^'^ Marion, 

I am not sure if this old and charming air be of the 
South, as is commonly said, or of the North of Scot- 
land. — There is a song apparently as antient as ^^ EwV- 
bughts Marion,'' w^hich sings to the same tune, and is 
evidently of the North.— It begins thus : 

The Lord o' Gordon had three dochters, 

Mary, Marget, and Jean, 
They wad na stay at bonie Castle Gordon, 

Bjut awa to Aberdeen. 



* Sheep-fold^s. 



147 

Lewis Gordon* 

This air is a proof how one of our Scots tunes 
conies to be composed out of another. I have one of 
the earliest copies of the song, and it has prefixed, 

" Tune of Tarry Woo"— 

Of which tune, a different set has insensibly varied 
into a different air —To a Scots critic, the pathos df 
the line, 

'' Tho' his back be at the wa," 

— must be very striking. — It needs not a Jacobite pre- 
^judice to be affected with this song. 



Oh ono C/mci 

Dr. Blacklock informed me that this song was com- 
posed on the infamous massacre of Glencoe. 



I ^11 never leave thee. 

This is another of Crawford's songs, but I do not 
think in his happiest manner.— What an absurdity, to 
join such names, as Adonis and Mary together. 



Co7'n Rigs are bonie. 

All the old words that I ever could meet to this 
air were the following, which seem to have been an 
old chorus. 

O corn rigs and rye rigs, 

O corn rigs are bonie ; 
And where'er you meet a bonie lass. 

Preen up her cockernony. 



* The supposed author of Lewis Gordon was a Mr. Gcddes, 
\ priest, at Shenval, irt the Ainzie. R. B. 

j- A corruption of O kone a rie* signifying — " Alas for tlie 
j prince, or chief." 



148 

The mucking of Geordie^s By aw 

The chorus of this song is old ; the rest is the work 
)f Balloon Tytler. 



Bide ye yet, 

Fhere is a beavitiful song to this tune, beginning, 

^' Alas, my son, you little know" — 

vv'hich is the composition of Miss Jenny Graham of 
Dumfries. 



Waukin o' the FaukL 

There are two stanzas still sung to this tune, which 
I take to be the original song whence Ramsay com- 
posed his beautiful song of that name in the Gentle 
Shepherd. — It begins 

O will ye speak at our town, 
As ye come frae the faiild, 8cc, 

I regret that, as in many of our old songs, the -deli- 
cacy of this old fragment is not equal to its wit and 
humour. 



Tranent'Muir, 

^i Tranent-Muir," was composed by a Mr. Skirvan, 
a very worthy respectable farmer near Haddington. I 
have heard the anecdote often, that Lieut. Smithy 
whom he mentions in the ninth stanza,* came to Had- 

Stanza 9. 

* " And Major Bowie, that worthy soul. 

Was broug-ht down to the ground, man \ 
His horse being shot, it was his lot 

For to get mony a wound man : 
Lieutenant Smith, of Irish birth, 

Frae whpm he call'd for aid, man. 
Being full of dread, lap o'er his head^ 

And wadna be gainsaid^ man!'" 



I4y 

dington after the publication of the song, and sent a 
challenge to Skirvan to meet him at Haddington, and 
cinswer for the unworthy manner in which he had no- 
ticed him in his song. — " Gang awa back," said the 
honest farmer,*' and tell Mr. Smith that I hue na lei- 
sure to come to Haddington; but tell him to come 
here ; and I '11 tak a look o' him, and if I think I 'm 
iit to fecht him, 1 '11 fecht him ; and if no — I '11 do as 
he did — /'// rin awa." — 



To the Weauers gin ye go. 

The Chorus of this song is old, the rest of it is mine. 
Here, once for all, let me apologize for many silly com- 
positions of mine in this work. Many beautiful airs 
wanted words; in the hurry of other avocations, if 1 
could string a parcel of rhymes together any thing near 
tolerable. 1 was fain to let them pass He must be an 
excellent poet indeed, whose every performance is ex- 
cellent. 



Folwarth on the Green, 

The author of '' Polwarth on the Green," is Cape. 
John Drummond M'Grigor, of the family of Bochal- 
die. 



Strefihon and Lydia. 

The following account of this song I had from Dr, 
Blacklock. 

The Strephon and Lydia mentioned in the song were 
perhaps the loveliest couple of their time. The gentle- 
man was commonly known by the name of Beau Gib- 
son. The lady was the " Gentle Jean," celebrated somc- 
vhere in Mr. Hamilton of Bangour's poems. — Having 
frequently met at public places, they had formed a re- 
ciprocal attachment, which their friends tliought dan- 
gerous, as their resources were by no means ad^'qua^r 

o ': 



150 

to their tastes and habits of life. To elude the bad con- 
sequences of such a connexion, Strephon was sent 
abroad with a commission, and perished in Admiral 
Vernon's expedition to Carthagena. 

The author of the song was William Wallace, Esq. 
of Cairnhill, in Ayrshire. 



/ ^m o^er young to marry yet. 

The chorus of this song is old. — The rest of it, such 
as it is, is mine. 



M'Pherson^s Farenoel* 

Mcpherson, a daring robber, in the beginning of this 
century, was condemned to be hanged at the assizes at 
Inverness. He is said, when under sentence of death, 
to have composed this tune, which he called his own 
lament, or farevvel. 

Gow has published a variation of this fine tune as 
his own composition, which he calls, " The Princess 
Augusta." 



My Jo^ Janet, 

Johnson, the publisher, with a foolish delicacy re- 
fused to insert the last stanza of this humorous bal- 
lad. 



The Shefiherd^s Complaint. 

The words by a Mr. R. Scott, from the town or neigh- 
bourhood of Biggar. 



* The words are Burns's — they will be found among the po- 
ems in this voluTne, 



151 



The Birks of Merfddy. 



I composed these stanzas standing under the falls of 
Aberfeldy, at, or near, Moness. 



The Highland Lassie >^ O, 

This was a composition of mine in very- early life, 
before I was known at all in the world. My Highland 
lassie was a warm-hearted, charming young creature 
as ever blessed a man with generous love. After a pretty 
long tract of the most ardent reciprocal attachment, 
we met by appointment, on the second Sunday of May, 
in a sequestered spot by the Banks of Ayr, where we 
spent the day in taking a farewel, before she should 
embark for the West-Highlands, to arrange matters 
among her friends for our projected change of life. At 
the close of Autumn following she crossed the sea to 
meet me at Greenock, where she had scarce landed 
when she was seized with a malignant fever, which hur- 
ried my dear girl to the grave in a few days, before I 
could even hear of her illness.* 



* There are events in this transitory scene of existence, sea- 
sons of joy or of sorrow, of despair or of hope, which as they 
powerfully affect us at the time, serve as epochs to the history 
of our lives. They may be termed the trials of the heart. — We 
treasure them deeply in our memory, and as time g-lides silently 
away they help us to number our days. Of this character was 
the parting of Burms with his Highland Mary, that interesting 
female, the first object of the youthful Poet's love. This adieu 
was performed with all those simple and striking ceremonials 
which rustic sentiment has devised to prolong tender emo- 
tions and to inspire av/e. The lovers stood on each side of a 
small purling b»-ook; they laved their liands in its limpid 
stream, and holding a bible between them, ]')ronounced tlicir 
vows to be faithful to each other. They parted — never to meet 
again ! 

Tlie anniversary of Jlfd/^ CampbelV s deixih, (for that was her 

nanie,) awakeniiig- in the sensitive mind of Burns the most 

. lively emotion, he retired from his family, then residing on the 



152 



Fifif^ and a' the Lands about it. 

This song is Dr. Biacklock's. He, as well as I, often 
gave Johnson verses, trifling enough perhaps, but they 
served as a vehicle to the music. 



Were na viy Heart light I wad die. 

Lord Hailes, in the notes to his collection of ancient 
Scots poems, says that this song was the composition 
of a Lady Grissei Baillie, daughter of the first Earl 
of Marchmont, and wife of George Baillie of Jervis* 
wood. 



The You72g Man's Dream, 
This song is the composition of Balloon Tytler 



Srrathallah's Lament. 

This air is the composition of one of the worthiest 
and best hearted nien living — Allan Masterton, School- 
master in Edinburgh. As he and 1 were both sprout^^ 
of jacobitism, we agreed to dedicate the words and air 
to that cause. 

To tell the matter of fact, except when my passions 
were heated by some accidental cause, my jacobitism 
was merely by way of, vive la bagatelle. 



farm of Ellisland, and wandered, solitary, on the banks of the^ 
Nith, and about the farm-yard, in the extremest ag-itation of 
mind, nearly the whole of the nig-ht: His ag*itation was so great 
that he threw himself on the side of a corn stack, and there 
conceived his sublime and tender elegy — his address To Mary 
in Heaver.. 



155 

Up, in the Morning early. 
The chorus of this is old ; the two stanzas are mi 

Ufi in the morning ^s no for me^ 

Ufi in the morning early ; 
When a' the hills are covered wV snaiv, 

I'm sure it 's rointer fairly. 

Cold blaws the wind frae east to west. 

The drift is drivini^ sairly ; 
Sae loud and shrill ^s I hear the blast, 

I 'm sure it 's winter fairly. 

The birds sit chittering in the thorn, 

A' day they fare but sparely ; 
And iang 's the night frae e'en to morn, 

I 'm sure it 's winter fairly. 

Up in the mornings &c. 



The Tears of Scotland, 

Dr. Blacklock told me that SmoUet, who was at bot- 
tom a rreat Jacobite, composed these beautiful and pa- 
thetic verses on the infamous depredations of the Duke 
of Cumberland after the battle of Cuiloden. 



IVhat nvill I do gin my Hoggle die. 

Dr. Walker, who was minister at Moffat in 1772, 
and is nov/ (1791) Professor oi Nv^tural- History, in tiie 
University of Edinburgh; told ihc foUowiiig anecdote 
concerning this air. — He said that seme gendemen 
riding a few years ago, through Liddesdc.le stopped at 
a hamlet consisting of a few houses, caiied Moss Piatt; 
when they were struck with this tune, which ^n old 
woman, spinning on a rock at her door, was singing. 
— All she could tell concerning it was, that she was 
taught it when a child, and it was called, '' What will 
1 do gin my Hoggie die." No person, except a few fe- 
males at M(^ss Piatt, knew this fine old tune; which. 



154 

in all probability, would have been lost, had not one of 
the gentlemen who happened to have a flute with him, 
taken it down. 



I dreamed I lay where Jiowers were sfiringing^. 

These two stanzas I composed when I was seven- 
teen, and are among the oldest of my printed pieces. 

I dream'd I lay where flowers were springing, 

Gaily in the sunny beam ; 
List'ning to the wild birds singing, 

By a falling, chrystal stream : 
Straight the sky grew black and daring; 

Thro* the woods the whirlwinds rave; 
Trees with aged arms were warring, 

0*er the swelling, drumlie wave. 
Such was my life's deceitful morning, 

Such the pleasures 1 enjoy'd; 
But lang or noon, loud tempests storming 

A' my flow'ry bliss destroy'd. 
Tho' fickle fortune has deceiv'd me, 

She promis'd fair, and perform'd but ill ; 
Of mony a joy and hope bereav'd me, 

I bear a heart shall support me still. 



Ah I the floor Shepherd^s mournful Fate. 
Tune — Gallashiels. 

The old title, " Sour Plums o' Gallashiels," proba- 
bly was the beginning of a song to this air, which is 
now lost. 

The tune of Gallashiels was composed about the 
beginning of the present century by the Laird of Gal- 
lashiei's piper. 



The Banks of the Devon, 

These verses were composed on a charming girl, a 
Miss Charlotte Hamilton, who isnow married to James 



155 

^WLitrick Adair, Esq. physician. She is sister to my 
worthy friend, Gavin Hamilton, of Mauchline; and 
was born on the banks of Ayr, but was, at the time I 
wrote these lines, residing at Herveyston, in Clack- 
mannanshire, on the romantic banks of the little river 
Devon. — 1 first heard the air from a lady in Inverness, 
and got the notes taken down for this work. 



Mill, Mill O,— 

The original, or at least a song evidently prior to 
Ramsay's, is still extant — It runs thus, 

Chorus. 

The mill, mill O, and the kill, kill O, 

jind the coggin o* Peggy's wheel O, 
The sack and the sieve, and a' she did leave, 
• jind danced the miller's reel O, — 

As I cam down yon waterside, 

And by yon shellin-hill O, 
There I spied a bonie bonie lass, 

And a lass that I lov'd right weel O. — f 



JVe ran and they ran. 

The author of'' We ran and they ran" — was a Rev. 
Mr. Murdoch M'Lennan, minister at Crathie, Dee- 
side. 



Waly, Waly, 

In the west country I have a different edition of the 
second stanza. — Instead of the four lines, beginning 



f The remaining' two stanzas, tlioiig-li pretty enough, jxir- 
•take rather too nuich of the rude simplicity of the " Olden 
^me" to be admitted here. 



156 

with, '' When cockle-shells," &c. the other way ran 
thus, 

O wherefore need I busk my head, 
Or wherefore need 1 kame my hair, 

Sin my faus luve has me forsook, 

And says, he Ml never luve me mair. — 



Duncan Grey. 

Dr. Blacklock informed me that he had often heard 
the tradition that this air was composed by a carman 
in Glasgow. 



Dumbarton Drums. 

This is the last of the West Highland airs ; and from 
it, over the whole tract of country to the confines of 
Tweed-side, there is hardly a tune or song that one 
can say has taken its origin from any place or transac- 
tion in that part of Scotland.-*-The oldest Ayrshire 
reel, is Stewarton Lasses, which was made by the fa- 
ther of the present Sir Walter Montgomery Cunning- 
ham, alias Lord Lysle ; since which period there has 
indeed been local music in that country in great plen- 
ty. — Johnie Faa is the only old song which I could 
ever trace as belonging to the extensive county of 
Ayr. 



Cauicl Kail in Jberdeen, 

This song is by the Duke of Gordon. — The old 
verses are. 

There 's cauld Kail* in Aberdeen, 
And Castocksf in Strathbogie ; 

When ilka lad maun hae his lass. 
Then fye, gie me my coggie4 



tage 



Kail, colevrorts, a plant mucli used in Scotland for pot- 



157 

Chorus. 

My coggie^ Sirs^ my coggie, Sirs^ 

I cannot ivant my coggie : 
I ivadna gie my thrte-girrhl cafi 

For e^er a queue on Bogie. — 

There 's Johnie Smith has got a wife 
That scrimps him o' his coggie, 

If she were iiiine, upon my life 
I wad douk her in a bogie. — 

My coggie^ Sirsy i^c. 



For lake of Gold, 
The country girls in Ayrshire, instead of the lin^ 
She me forsook for a great duke, 
ssay, 

For Athole's duke she me forsook; 

which 1 take to be the original reading. 

These words were composed by the late Dr. Aus- 
tin, physician at Edinburgh. — He iiad courted a laay, 
to whom he was shortly to have been married ; but the 
Duke of Athole having seen her, became so mu( h in 
love with her, that he made proposals of marriage, 
which were accepted of, and she jilted the doctor. 



Here 's a Health to my true Love^ l!fc. 

This song is Dr. Blacklock's — He told me that tra- 
dition gives the air to our James IV of Scotland. 



t Castochs, cabbage stalks. 

t Cog-, of which cog-g-ie is the diminutive, (according* to 
Ramsity,) is a prtlty large wooden disli, the country people 
put xhij'w p*>ttage in. It is also :i chinking vessel of the same 
materials, differing" from the bicker in having no handle. 



158 

Hey tutti tait. 

1 have met the tradition universally over Scotland, 

and pwirticulaily about Stirling, in the neighbouriiood 
of the scene, that this air was Robert Bruce' s march 
at the battle of Bannockburn:^ 



Raving Winds aroirid her blowing, 

I composed these verses on Miss Isabella M'Leod 
of Raza, alluding to her feelings on the death of her 
sister, and the siill more melancholy death of her sis- 
ter's husband, the late Earl of Loudon ; who shot him- 
self out of sheer heart-break at some mortifications he 
suffered, owing to the deranged state of his finances. 



Tak your auld Cloak about ye, 
A part of this old song, according to the English set 
of it, is quoted in Shakspearef 

* It does not seem at all probable that the Scots had any 
martial music in the time of this monarch; it being their cus- 
tom, at that period, for every man in the host to bear a littla 
horn, with the blowing of which, as we are told by Froissart, 
they would make such a horrible noise as if all the devils of 
hell had been among them. It is not therefore, likely, that 
these unpolished warriors would be curious 



' to move 



" In perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood 
" Of flutes and self recorders." 

These horns, indeed, are the only music ever mentioned by 
Barbour, to whom any particular march would have been too 
important a circumstance to be passed over in silence; so that 
it must remain a moot point, whether Bruce's army were cheer- 
ed by the sound of even a solitary bagpipe. 

See Ritsoji^s Hist. Essay on Scottish Song. 

f In the drinking scene in Othello — lago sings : 

" King Stephen was a worthy peer. 
His breeches cost him but aero wn; 

He held them sixpence all too dear. 
With that he called the tailor lown i 



159 

Ye Godsyivas Stre/i/ion^s Picture blest .^ 

Tune — Fourteenth of October. 

The title of this air shews that it alludes to the id- 
rnous king Crispian, the patron of the honorable corpo- 
ration of Shoemakers. — vSt. Crispian's day falls on the 
fourteenth of October, old style, as the old proverb 
tells ; 

'' On the fourteenth of October 
'' Was ne'er a sutor* sober." 



Si?ice robbed of all that charmed my Views. 

The old name of this air is, " The blossom o' the 
Raspberry." The song is Dr. Blacklock's. 



Young' Damon, 
This air is by Oswald. 



Kirk wad let me be. 

Tradition in the western parts of Scotland tells, that 
this't)ld song, of which there are still three stanzas 
extant, once saved a covenanting clergyman out of a 
scrape. It was a little prior to the revolution, a period 
when being a Scots covenanter was being a felon, that 
one of their clergy who was at that very time hunted 
by the merciless soldiery, fell in, by accident, with a 



He was a wig-ht of high renown, 

And thou art but of low degree: 
'Tis pride that pulls the country down, 

Then take thine auld cloak about thee." 

The old song from which these stanzas are taken, was re- 
covered by Dr. Percy, and preserved by him in his Religues 
iff Antient Poetry. E . 

* Sutor^^Ci Shoemaker- 



160 

party of the military. The soldiers were not exactly 
acquainted with the person of the reverend gentle- 
man of whom they were in search; but, from some 
suspicious circumstances, they fancied they had got one 
r)f that cloth and opprobrious persuasion among them 
in the pei son of the stranger. " Mass John," to extricate 
himselfj assumed a freedom of manners, very unlike 
the gloomy strictness of his sect ; and among other 
convivial exhibitions, sung, (and some traditions say, 
composed on the spur of the occasion,) ^'^ Kirk wad let 
me be," with such effect, that the soldiers swore he 
was a d d honest fellow, and that it was impossi- 
ble he couid belong to those hellish conventicles ; and 
so e^ave him his liberty. 

The first stanza of this song, a little altered, is a fa- 
vorite kind of dramatic interlude acted at country 
weddings, in the south-west parts of the kingdom. A 
young fellow is dressed up like an old beggar ; a pe- 
ruke, commonly made of carded tow, represents hoa- 
ry locks ; an old bonnet ; a ragged plaid, or surtout, 
bound with a stravi-rope for a girdle ; a pair of old 
shoes, with straw-ropes twisted round his ancles, as is 
done by shepherds in snowy weather: his face they 
^lisguise as like wretched old age as they can : in this 
plight he is brouc;bt hitothe weddhig-house, frequent- 
ly to the astonishment of strangers who are not in the 
secret, and begins to sing- — 

'^ O, I am a silly auld man, 

'< My name it is auld Glenae,* &c. 

He is asked to drink, and by and by to dance, wliich, 
after some uncouth excuses he is prevailed on to do, 
the hddier playing the tune, which here is commonly 
called, '-^ Auld Glenae ;" in short, he is all the time so 
plied with liquor that he is understood to get intoxi- 



* Glenae, on the small river Ae, in Annandale; the seat and 
designation of an antient branch, and the present representa- 
tive, of the gallant hut unfortunate DaUiels of Carnwath.— — ^ 
This is the Autkor^-s note^ 



161 

cated, and with all the ridiculous gesticulations of an 
old drunken beggar, he dances and staggers until he 
falls on the floor ; yet still in all his riot, nay in his 
rolling and tumbling on the floor, with some or other 
drunken motion of his body, he beats time to the mu- 
sic, till at last he is supposed to be carried out dead 
drunk. 



Musing on the 7' oaring Ocean. 

I composed these verses out of compliment to a 
Mrs. M'Lachlan, whose husband is an officer in the 
East-Indies. 



Blythe was she, 

I composed these verses while I stayed at Ochter- 
tyre with Sir AVilliam Murray. — The lady, who was 
also at Ochtertyre at the same time, was the well- 
known toast, Miss Euphemia Murray of Lentrose, who 
was called, and very justly, The 1 lower of Strathmore. 



Johnny Faa^ or the Gyfisie Laddie, 

The people in Ayrshire begin this song — 

" The gypsies cam to my Lord Cassili's yett'' — 

They have a great many more stanzas in this song than 
I ever yet saw in any printed copy. — The castle is still 
remaining at Maybole, where his lordship shut up his 
wayward spouse and kept her for life- 



To daunton me. 

The two following old stanzas to this tune hswK 
some merit: 

To daunton me, to daunton me, 
O ken ye what it is that '11 daunton me? — 
There 's eighty eight and eiL;hty nine. 
And a' that I hae boinc sinsync* 
V 2. 



162 

There 's cess and press* and Presbytrie, 
I think it will do meikle for to daunton me. 
But to wanton me, to wanton me, 

ken ye w^hat it is that wad wanton me — 
To see gude corn upon the rigs. 

And banishment amang the Whigs, 
And right restored where right sud be, 

1 think it would do meikle for to wanton me. 



The Bonie Lass made the Bed to me. 

^'' The Bohie Lass made the Bed to me," was com- 
posed on an amour of Charles II, when sculking in 
ti-\Q North, about Aberdeen, in the time of the usur- 
pation. He formed une petite affaire with a daughter 
of the House of Port-Ietham, who vvas the " lass that 
made the bed to him :" — two verses of it are, 

I kiss'd her lips so rosy red, 

While the tear stood biinkin in her e'e ; 
I said my lassie dinna cry 

For ye ay shall mak the bed to me. 

She took her mither's winding sheet, 

And o't she made a sark to me ; 
Blythe and merry may she be, 

The lass that made the bed to me. 



Absence, 
A song* in the manner of Shenstone. 
This song and air are both by Dr. Black lock. 



/ had a Horse and I had nae mair. 

This story was founded on fact. A John Hunter, an- 
cestor to a-very respectable farming Limily who live in a 



* Scot and lot. 



163 

place in the parish, I think, of Galston, called Barr-mill, 
was the luckless hero that " had a horse and had nac 
mair.'^ For some little youthful follies he found it ne- 
cessary to make a retreat to the West-Highlands, 
where '' he feed himself to a Highland Lidrd," for 
that is the expression of all the oral editions of the 
song I ever heard. — The present Mr. Hunter, who 
told me the anecdote, is the great grand-child to our 
hero. 



IJp, and warn a' Willie, 

This edition of the song I got from Tom JS/'iel^'^ of 
facetious fame, in Edinburgh. The expression, '^ Up 
and warn a' Willie," alludes to the Crantara, or warn- 
ing of a Highland Clan to arms. Not understanding 
this, the Lowlanders in the west, and south, say, ^' Up 
and waur them a," Sec. 



^ Rose-bud by my early Walk, 

This song I composed on Miss Jenny Cruikshank, 
only child to my w^orthy friend Mr. Wm. Ouikshank, 
"of the High-School, Edinburgh. The air is by a David 
Siilar, quondam Merchant, and nov/ Schoolmaster in 
Irvine. He is the Davie to wdiom I address my print- 
ed poetical epistle in the measure of the Cherry uud 
the Slae. 



Juld Rob Morris. 

It is remark-v/ortby that the song of '^ Hooly and 
Fairly," in all the old editions of it, is called '^ The 
Drunken Wife o' Galloway," which localizes it to that 
country. 



' Tom .^'eil was a carpenter in Edinburgh, and lived chiefly 

making cofiins. lie was also Precentor, or Clerk, in one of 

ti»e churches. lie had a good strong voice, and was greatly 

dlst:n[;*uis]ied by his powers of mimicry, and his humorous 

manner of singiiig the old ScotUsh balladi?. E. 



164 



llattUn^ roarin IVillie. 

The last stanza of this song is mine ; it was com- 
posed out of compliment to one of the worthiest fel- 
lows in the world, William Dunbar, Esq. writer to the 
signet, Edinburgh, and Colonel of the Crochallan 
corps, a club of wits who took that title at the time of 
raising the fencible regiments. 



Where braving angry Winter^s Stortns, 

This song I composed on one of the most accom- 
plished of women, Miss Peggy Chalmers that was^ 
now Mrs. Lewis Hay? of Forbes and Co.'s bank, Edin- 
burgh. 



Tibbie^ I hae seen the Day, 
This song I composed about the age of seventeen, 



A^ancy^s Ghost, 
This song is by Dr. Blacklock. 



Tune your Fiddles-^ i^c. 

This song was composed by the Rev. John Skinnen 
Nonjurer Clergyman at Linshart, near Peterhead. He 
is likcAvise the author of Tullochgorum, Ev/ie wi' the 
Crooked Horn, John o' Biidenyond, &c. and what is of 
still more consequence, he is one of the worthiest of 
mankind. He is the author of an ecclesiastical history 
of Scotland. The air is by Mr. Marshall, butler to the 
Duke of Gordon ; the first composer of strathspeys of 
the age. 1 have been told by somebody who had it of 
Marshall himself, that he took the idea of his three 
most celebrated pieces. The Marquis of Huntley's 
Reel, Plis Farewei, and Miss Adminii Gordon's Reel, 
from the old air, «• The German Laddie." 



165 

Gill Morice. 

This plaintive ballad oir^ht to have been called 
Child Maurice, and not Gill Morice. In its present 
dress it has gained inimortul honor from Mr. Home's 
taking* it for th^ ground-work of his fine trugedy of 
Douglas. But 1 Sim of opinion that the present ballad 
is a modern composition ; perhaps not much above the 
age of the middle of the last century; at least I should 
be glad to see or hear of a copy of the present words 
piior to 1650. That it was taken from an old ballad, 
caiied Child Maurice, now lost, I am inclined to be- 
lieve ; but the present one may be classed with iiar- 
dycanutC)* Kenneth, Duncan, the Laird of VVoodhouse- 
lie. Lord Livingston, Binnorie, The Death of Mon- 
teith, and many other modern productions, which have 
been swallowed by many readers, as antient fragments 
of old poems. This beautiful plaintive tune wis com- 
posed by Mr. M'Gibbon, the selector of a collection of 
Scots tunes. R. R. 

In addition to the observations on Gill Morris, I 
add, that of the songs which Capt. Riddel mentions, 
Kenneth and Duncan are juvenile compositions of Mr. 
M'Kenzie, The Man of Feeling. — M^Kenzie's father 
shewed them in MSS. to Dr. Blacklock, as the pro- 
ductions of his son, from which the Doctor rightly 
prognosticated that the young poet would make in his 
more advanced years, a respectable figure in the world 
of lettei's. 

This I had from Blacklock. 



Tibbie Dunbar. 

This tunc is said to be the composition of John 
M^Gill, fiddler, in Girvan. He called it after his own 
name. 



* In the year 1719, the celebrated poem or ballad of Hardij- 
kniite^ iirst appeared at Ediiiburg'h, as " a frag^ment,'* in a fo- 
lio pamphlet of twelve pages. ' IlXTSON. 



166 

When I upon thy Bosom lecm. 

This song was the work of a veiy worthy? facetious 
old fellow, John Lapraik, late of Dalfram, near Muir- 
kirk; which little property he was obliged to sell in 
consequence of some connexion as ^curity for some 
persons concerned in that villainous bubble, the ayr 
BANK. He has often told nie that he composed this 
song one day when his wife had been fretting o'er their 
misfortunes.* 



* This is the very song* " that some kind husband had addreBt 
to some sweet •wifey'' alluded to with such exquisite delicacy in 
the Epistle to J. Lapraik. 

'* There was ae sang amang' the rest, 

" Aboon them a' it pleased me best, 

** That some kind husband had addrest 

** To some sweet wife : 
" It thrill'd the heart-strings thro' the breast, 

" A' to the life." 

* When I upon thy bosom lean 

And fondly clasp thee a' my ain, 
I glory in the sacred ties 

That made us ane, wha ance were twain: 
A mutual flame inspires us baith, 

The tender look, the melting kiss : 
Even years shall ne*er destroy our love. 

But only gie us change o' bliss. 

* Hae I a wish ? its a' for thee ; 

I ken thy wish is me to please; 
Our moments pass sae smooth away. 

That numbers on us look and gaze, 
Weel pleas'd they see our happy days, 

Nor envy's sel finds aught to blame ; ; 

And ay Avhen weary cares arise. 

Thy bosom still shall be my hame. 

' I '11 lay me there, and take my rest, 

And if that aught disturb my dear, ^ 

I '11 bid her laugh her cai'es away. 

And beg her not to drap a tear: 
Hae I a joy! its a' her ain; 

United still her heart and mine ; 
They 're like the woodbine round the tree. 

That 's twin'd till death shall them disjoiu ' 



167 

-My Harry was a Gallant gay. 

Tune— Highlander's Lament. 

The oldest title I ever heard to this air was, " The 
Highland Watch's Farewel to Ireland.*' The chorus 
I picked up from an old woman in Dunblane ; the rest 
of the song is mine. 



The Highland Character. 

This tune was the composition of Gen. Reid, and 
called l3y him, '' The Highland, or 42d Regiment's 
March." 

The words are by Sir Harry Erskine. 



Leader Haughs and Yarrow, 

There is in several collections, the old song of Lead- 
er Haughs and Yarrow. It seems to have been the 
work of one of our itinerant minstrels, as he calls him- 
self? at the conclusion of his song, ^^ Minstrel Burn,** 



The Tailor fell thro' the Bed^ Thimble ati' a\ 

This air is the march of the Corporation of Tailors, 
The second and fourth st mzas are mine. 



Beware o' Bonie Ann, 

I composed this song out of compliment to Miss 
Ann Masterton, the daughter of my friend, Allan 
Masterton, the author of the uir of Strathailan's La- 
iient, and two or three others in this work. 

Ye gallants bright I red ye right, 

Beware o' bonie Ann ; 
Her comely face sae fu' o' grace. 

Your heart she will trepan 



168 

Her ecn sae bright, like stars by night. 

Her skin is like the swan; 
Sae jiniply lac'd her genty waist, 

That sweetly ye might span. 

Youth, grace, and love, attendant move, 

And pleasure leads the van ; 
In a' their charms, and conquering arms. 

They wait on bonie Ann. 
•The CLptive bands may chain the hands, 

But love enslaves the man; 
Ye gallants braw, 1 red you a', 

Beware o' bonie Ann. 



This is 710 mine am House, 

The first half-stanza is old, the rest is Ramsay's. 
The old words are — 

this is no mine aine house, 
My ciin house, my ain house; 

This is no. mine ain house, 
1 ken by the biggin o't. . 

There 's bread and cheese are my door-cheeks, 
Are my door-cheeks, are my door-cheeks; 

There 's breud and cheese are my door-cheeks, 
And pan-cakes the riggin o't. 

This is :aO aiy ain wean. 

My airi wean, my uin wean; 
This is no my ain wean, 

I ken by the greetie o't. 

1 '11 tak the curcbie aff my head, 

Aff my head, afF my head ; 
I 'ii tak the curchie aff my head, 
And row't about the feetie o't. 

The tune is an old HigiilanU air, called Shuan truish 
willighan. 



169 

Laddie^ lie near me. 
This song is by Blacklock. 



The Gardener vjV his Faidle* 

This air is the Gardener's March. The title of the 
song only is old ; the rest is mine. 

When rosy May comes in \vi' flowers, 
To deck her gay, green-spreading bowers ; 
Then busy, busy are his hours, 
The gard'ner wi' his paidle. 

The chrystal waters gently fa'; 
The merry birds are lovers a' ; 
The scented breezes round him blaw, 
The gard'ner wi' his paidle. 

When purple morning starts the hare 
To steal upon her early fare ; 
Then thro' the dews he maun repair, 
The gard'ner wi' his paidle. 

When day expiring in the west, 
The curtain draws of nature's rest ; 
He flies to her arms he lo'es best. 
The gard'ner wi' his paidle. 



The Day returns^ my Bosom bur7is. 

Tune— Seventh of November. 

I composed this song out of compliment to one of 
the happiest and worthiest married couples in the world, 
Robert Riddel, Esq. of Glenriddel, and his lady. At 
their fire-side I have enjoyed more pleasant evenini^s 
than at all the houses of fashionable people in this 

* This is the original of the song* that appears in Dr. Cur 
rie's ed. vol. iv, p. 103; it is there called Dainty Davie, 



170 

country put together; and to their kindness and hos- 
pitality 1 am indebted for many of the happiest hours 
of my life. 



The Gaberlunzie-Man * 

The Gaberlunzie-Man is supposed to commemorate 
an intrigue of James the Vth. Mr. Callander of Ciaig- 
forth, published some years ago, an edition of'' Christ's 
Kirk on the Green," and the " Gaberlunzie-Man," with 
notes critical and historical. James the Vth is said to 
have been fond of Gosford, in Aberh.dy Parish, and 
that it was suspected by his contemporaries, that in 
his frequent excursions to that part of the country he 
had other purposes in view besides golfing and archery. 
Three favorite ladies, Sandilands, Weir, andOliphant; 
(o e of them resides at Gosford, and the others in the 
neighbourhood,) were occasionally visited by their royal 
and gallant admirer, which gave rise to the following 
satirical advice to his Majesty, from Sir David Lind- 
say, of the Mount; Lord Lyon.f 

Sow not your seed on Sandylands, 
Spend not your strength in Weir, 

And ride not on an Elephant, 
For spoiling o' your gear. 



My Bonnie Mary, 

This air is Oswald's ; the first half-stanza of the song 
is old, the rest mine. 

Go fetch to me a pint o' wine. 

An* fill it in a silver tassie ; 
That 1 may drink before I go, 

A service to my bonnie lassie ; 

* A wallet-man or tinker^ who appears to have been formerly 
a jack of all trades. 

t Sir David was Lion-King-at-Arms, under James V 



171 

The boat rocks at the pier o' Leith ; 

Fu' loud the wind blaws frae the ferry : 
The ship rides by the Berwick-law, 

And I maun lea'e my bonnie Mary. 

The trumpets sound, the banners fly, 

The glittering spears are ranked ready. 
The shouts o' war are heard afar, 

The battle closes thick and bloody ; 
But it 's not the roar o' sea or shore 

Wad make me langer wish to tarry ; 
Nor shouts o' war that 's heard afar, 

It 's leaving thee, my bonnie Mary.* 



The Black Eagle. 

This song is by Dr. Fordyce, whose merits as 5. 
prose writer are well known. 



Jamie come try me. 
This air is Oswald's; the song mine. 



The lazy Mist, 
This song is mine. 



Johnie Cofie. 

This satirical song was composed to commemorate 
General Cope's defeat at Preston Pans, in 1745, when 
j^e marched against the Clans. 

The air was the tune of an old song, of which I have 
heard some verses, but now only remember the title, 
which was 

Will ye go to the coals in the morning. 

* This song", which Burns here acknowledges to be his own, 
was first introduced by him in a letter to Mrs. Diinlop, as two 
M stanzas. 

Bee Letters, vol. ii, p. 188 



172 

I love my Jean, 

This air is by Marshal ; the song I composed our 
of compliment to Mrs. Burns. 

N. B. It was during the honey -moon. 



Cease^ cease my dear Friend to explore. 

The song is by Dr. Blacklock; I believe, but am 
not quite certain, that the air is his too. 



Auld Robin Gray, 

Thir air was formerly called, ^' The Bridegroom 
[>;reets when the Sun gangs down." 



Donald and Flora. 

This is one of those fine Gaelic tunes, preserved 
from time immemorial in the Hebrides ; they seem 
to be the ground-work of many of our finest Scots 
pastoral tunes. The words of this song were written 
to commemorate the unfortunate expedition of Gene* 
ral Burgoyne in America, in 1777. 



ivere I on Parnassus^ Hill. 

This air is Oswald's; the song I made out of com- 
pliment to Mrs. Burns. 



The Captive Ribband. 
riils air is called Robie donna Goracli. 



There ^s a Youth iii this City. 

This air is claim.ed by Neil Gow, who calls it his la- 
ment for his brother. The first half-stanza of the song 

is old; the rest is mine. 



173 

There *s a youth in this city, it were a great pity 

That he from our lasses should wander awa ; 
For he 's bonie and braw, weel-favor'd with a% 

And his hair has a natural buckle and a'. 
His coat is the hue of his bonnet sae blue ; 

His feckett is white as the new-driven snaw; 
His hose they are blae, and his shoon like the slae, 

And his clear siller buckles they dazzle us a'. 
His coat is the hue, 8cc. 

For beauty and fortune the laddie 's been courtin ; 

Weel-featur'd, weel-tocher'd, weel-mounted and 
braw ; 
But chiefly the siller, that gars him gang till her, 

The pennie 's the jewel that beautifies a'. — 
There 's Meg wi' the mailin, that fain wad a haen 
him, 

And Susy whase daddy was Laird o' the ha' ; 
There 's lang-tocher'd Nancy maist fetters his fancy, 

— But the laddie's dear sel he lo'es dearest of a'. 



My Heart '« in the Highlands, 

The first half-stanza of this song is old; the rest is 
mine. 

My heart 's in the Highlands, my heart is not here ; 
My heart 's in the Highlands a chasing the deer; 
Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe. 
My heart 's in the Highlands wherever I go. 
Farewei to the Highlands, farewel to the North, 
The birth-place of valour, the country of v/orth ; 
Wherever i wander, wherever I rove. 
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love. 

Farewel to the mountains high cover'd with snow ; 
Farewel to the straths and green vallies below : 
Farewel to the forests and wild hanging woods; 
Farewel to the torrents and loud-pouring iloods. 



t Fecket — an under-waistcoat with 5U evo^ 
<i3 



174 

My heart 's in the Highlands, my heart is not here> 
My heart *s in the Highlands, a chasing the deer : 
Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe, 
My heart 's in the Highlands, wherever 1 go. 



Ca^ the Ewes to the Knowcs, 

This beautiful song is in the true old Scotch taste* 
yet I do not know tliat either air, or words, were in 
print before. 



The Bridal o't. 

This song is the work of a Mr. Alexander Ross, 
late schoolmaster at Lochlee ; and author of a beauti- 
ful Scots poem, called the Fortunate Shepherdess. 



Todlen Name. 

This is perhaps the first bottle song that ever was 
composed. 



The Braes o' Ballochmyle, 

This air is the composition of my friend Allan Mas- 
terton, in Edinburgh. I composed the verses on the 
amiable and excellent family of Whitefoord's leaving 
Ballochmyle, when Sir John'§ misfortunes had obliged 
him to sell the estate. 



The rantin Dog the JDaddie o't. 

1 composed this song pretty early in life, and sent 
It to a young girl, a very particular acquaintance of 
mine, who was at that time under a cloud. 

O wha my babie-ciouts will buy? 
Wha will tent me when I cry? 
Wha will kiss nie whare I lie ? 

The ranlin dog the daddie o't. — 



175 

Wha will own he did the fautr 
Wha will buy my groanin-maut 
Wha will tell me how to ca't r 
The rantin dog the daddie o't. 

When I mount the creepie-chair, 
Wha will sit beside me there ? 
Gie me Rob, I seek nae mair, 
The rantin dog the daddie o't.— 

Wha will crack to me my lane ? 
Wha will mak me fidgin fain?* 
Wha will kiss me o'er again ? 
The rantin dog the daddie o't.— • 



The Shefiherd^s Preference, 

This song is Blacklock's. — I don't know how it came 
by the name, but the oldest appellation of the air, was, 
♦' Whistle and I '11 come to you my lad." 

It has little affinity to the tune commonly known by 
that name. 



The borde Banks of Ayr, 

I composed this song as I convoyed my chest so far 
on the road to Greenock, where 1 was to embark in a 
few days for Jamaica. 

I meant it as my farewel Dirge to my native land.f 



* Fidgin fain — Fidgeting with delight — Tickled with plea- 
sure. 

f I had taken my last farewel of my few friends; my che^^t 
-was on the road to Greenock; I had composed the last song I 
should ever measure in Caledonia, The gloomy A'lght is ga- 
thering fast.^^ 

Letter to Dr. MoorCy vol i, p. 35. Dr. Cunu'e^s cd 



176 



\jQhn o' Badenyond. 



This excellent song is the composition of my wor- 
thy friend, old Skinner, at Linshart. 



^A Waukrife Minnie. 

I picked up this old song and tune from a country 
girl in Nithsdale.~I never met with it elsewhere in 
Scotland. 

Whare are you gaun, my bonie lass, 
Whare are you gaun, my hinnie? 

She answer'd me right saucilie. 
An errand for my minnie. 

O whare live ye, my bonie lass, 

O whare live ye, my hinnie. 
By yon burn-side, gin ye maun kep 

In a wee house wi' my minnie. 

But 1 foor up the glen at e'en, 

To see my bonie lassie ; 
And lang before the grey morn cam, 

She was na hauf sae saucie. 

O weary fa' the Waukrife cock. 
And the foumart lay his crawin ! 

He wauken'd the auld wife frae her sleep, 
A wee blink or the dawin. 

An angry wife I wat she raise, 

And o'er the bed she brought her ; 

And wi' a mickle hazle rung 

She made her a weel pay'd dochter. 



•}■ The words of Burns's celebrated Dirge — beginning", * Maii 
•was made to mourns'' were composed to this tune. E. 

§ A watchful mother. 



177 

O fare thee weel, my bonie lazsl 
O fare thee weel my hinnie ! 

Thou art a gay and a bonie lass, 
But thou. has a waukrife minnie.* 



Tulloc/igoru?n. 

This, lirst oi" sonijs, is the master-piece of my old 
friend Skinner. He was passing the day, at the town 
of Cullen I think it was, in a friend's house whose 
name was Montgomery. — Mrs. Montgomery observ- 
ing, en fiassaiit^ that the beautiful reel of Tullochgo- 
rum wanted words, she begged them of Mr. Skinner, 
who gratified her wishes, and the wishes of every lover 
of Scottish song, in this most excellent ballad. 

These particulars I had from the author's son, 
Bishop Skinner, at Aberdeen. 



For a' that and a' that. 
This song is mine,t all except the chorus. 



Autd tang syne, 

Ramsay here, as usual with him, has taken the idea 
of the song, and the first line, from the old fragment, 
which may be seen in The Museum, vol. v. 



Willie bretv'd a Feck o' Maut, 

This air is Masterton's; the song mine. — The oc- 
casion of it was this. — Mr. Wm. Nicol, of the High 
School, Edinburgh, during the autunm vacation be- 
ing at Moffat, honest Allan, who was at that time on a 
visit to Dalswinton, and I went to pay Nicol a visit. — 

* The Editor thinks it respectful to the Poet to preserve 
the verses he thus recovered. 

+ Th!<5 is part of the Bard's Song in Th^ Jolly Begsrar^. 



178 

We had such u joyous meeting that Mr. Masterton 
and I agreed^ each in our own way, that we should ce- 
lebrate the business. 



KUliecrankie, 

The battle of Killiecrankie was the last stand made 
by the Clans for James, after his abdication. Here the 
gallant Lord Dundee fell in the moment of victory, 
and with him fell the hopes of the party.— General 
M^Kay, when he found the Highlanders did not pur- 
sue his flying army, said, '* Dundee must be killed, or 
he never would have overlooked this advantage." — \ 
great stone marks the place where Dundee fell. 



The Ewie wi' the crooked Horn, 
Another excellent song of old Skinner's. 



Craigie-burn Wood. 

It is remarkable of this air, that it is the confine of 
that country where the greatest part of our Lowland 
music, (so far as from the title, words, &c. we can lo- 
calize it,) has been composed. From Craigie-burn, near 
Moffat, until one reaches the West Highlands, we 
have scarcely one slow air of any antiquity. 

The song was composed on a passion which a Mr. 
Gillespie, a particular friend of mine, had for a Miss, 
t^orimer, afterwards a Mrs. Whelpdale.— The young 
lady was born at Craigie-burn- wood. — The chorus is 
part of an old foolish ballad. — 

Beyond thee^ dearie^ beyond thee^ dearie^ 

And O to be lying beyond theey 
O siveetly^ soundly^ weel may he sleefi^ 

That *s laid in the bed beyond thee. 



179 

Sweet closes the evening on Craigie -burn -wood, 

And biythely awakens the morrow; 
But the pride of the spring in the Craigie-burn- 
v/ood, 
Can yield me to nothing but sorrow. 

Beyond thee^ ^c. 

I see the spreading leaves and flowers, 

I hear the wild birds singing; 
But pleasure they hae nane for me, 

While care my heart is wringing. 

Beyond thee^ i^e, 

I canna tell, I maun na tell, 

I dare na for your anger; 
But secret love will break my heart. 

If I conceal it langer. 

Beyotid thee^ Ijfc. 

I see thee gracefu', straight and tall, 

I see thee sweet and bonie. 
But oh, what will my torments be, 

Jf thou refuse thy Johnie 1 

Beyond thee^ l!fc. 

To see thee in anither's arms, 

In love to lie and languish, 
'Twad be my dead, that will be seen, 

My heart wad burst wd' anguish. 

Beyond thee^ iP'c, 

But Jeanie, say thou wilt be mine, 

bay, thou lo'es nane before me ; 
And a' my days o' life to come 

I '11 gratefully adore thee. 

Beyond theey ^c. 



Frae the Friends and Land I loue. 

1 added the four last lines by way of giving a turn 
o the themes of the poem, such as it is. 



180 

Frae the friends and land I love, 

Driv'n by fortune's felly spite ; 
Frae my best belov'd I rove. 

Never mair to taste delight. 
"Never midr maun hope to find 

Ease frae toil, relief frae care, 
When remembrance racks the mind, 

Pleasures but unveil despair. 

Brightest climes shall mirk appear, 

Desart ilka blooming shore ; 
Till the fates, nae man^ severe, 

Friendship, love and peace restore. 
Till revenge wi' laurel'd head 

Bring our bunish'd hame again; 
And ilk loyal, bonie lad, 

Cross the seas and win his ain. 



Hughie Graham, 

There are several editions of this ballad.— Thi% 
here inserted, is from an oral tradition in Ayrshire, 
where, when I was a boy, it was a popular song. — It, 
originally, had a simple old tune, which I have forgot- 
ten. 

Our lords are to the mountains gane, 

A hunting o' the fallow deer. 
And they have gripet Hughie Graham 

For stealing o' the bishop's mare. 

And they have tied him hand and foot, 
And led him up, thro' Stirling town ; 

The lads and lasses met him there. 
Cried, Hughie Graham thou 'rt a loun. 

O lowse my right hand free, he says, 
And put my braid sword in the same ; 

He 's no in Stirling town this day, 
Dare tell the tale to Hughie Graham. 



181 

Up then bespake the brave Whitefoord, 
As he sat by the bishop's knee, 

Five hundred white stots I '11 gie you 
If ye '11 let Hughie Graham free. 

O haud your tongue, the Inshop says, 
And \vi' your pleading let me be ; 

For tho' ten Grahams were in his coat, 
Hughie Graham this day shall die . 

Up then bespake the fair Whitefoord, 
As she sat by the bishop's knee ; 

Five hundred white pence I '11 gie you. 
If ye '11 gie Hughie Graham to me. 

O haud your tongue now lady fair, 
And wi' your pleading let it be ; 

Altho' ten Grahams were in his coat, 
It 's for my honor he maun die. 

They Ve ta'en him to the gallows knowe* 

He looked to the gallows tree, 
Yet never colour left his cheek. 

Nor ever did he blink his e'e. 

At length he looked round about, 
To see whatever he could spy : 

And there he saw his auld father, 
And he was weeping bitteiriy. 

O haud your tongue, my father dear. 

And wi' your weeping let it be ; 
Thy weeping 's sairer on my heart, 

Than a' that they can do to me. 

And ye may gie my brother John, 

My sword that 's bent in the middle clear 

And let him come at twelve o'clock. 
And see me pay the bishoj^'s mare. 



182 

And ye may gie my brother James 

My sword that 's bent m the middle brown, 

And bid liim come at four o'clock. 
And see his brother Hugh cut down. 

Remember me to Maggy my wife, 

The neist lime ye gang o'er the moor, 

Tell her she staw the bishop's mare, 
Tell her she was the bishop's whore. 

And ye may tell my kith and kin, 
1 never did disgrace their blood ; 

And when they meet the bishop's cloak 
To mak it shorter by the hood.* 



A Southland Jenny, 

This is a popular Ayrshire song, though the notes ^ 
were never taken down before. — It, as well as many of ' 



* Burns did not chuse to be quite correct in stating that this 
copy of the ballad of Hugliie Graham is printed from oral tra- 
dition in Ayrshire. The fact is, that four of the stanzas are 
either altered or super-added by himself. 

Of this number the third and eighth are original; the ninth 
and tenth have received his corrections. Perhaps pathos was 
never more touching than in the picture of the hero singling 
out his poor aged father from the crowd of spectators; and 
the simple grandeur of preparation for this afflicting circum- 
stance in the verse that immediately precedes it is matchless. 

That the reader may properly appreciate the value of Burns's 
touches, I here subjoin two verses from the most correct copy 
of the ballad, as it is printed in the Border Minstrelsy y vol. ii, 
p. 324. 

" He looked over his left shoulder 

And for to see what he might see; 
There was he aware of his auld father. 

Came tearing his hair most piteouslie. 

^' O hald your tongue, my father, he says. 

And see that ye dinna weep for me ! 
Fov they may ravish me o' my life. 

But they canna banish me from heaven hie !" 



183 

the ballad tunes in this collection, was written horn 
Mrs. Burns's voice. 



My Tocher 's (he JeweL* 

This tune is claimed by Nathaniel Gow. — It is no- 
toriously taken from " The Muckin o' Geordie's Hyi e." 
— It is also to be found, long prior to Nathaniel Gow's 
aera, in Aird's Selection of Airs and Marx:hes, the nrst 
edition, under the name of, " The Highway to Edin* 
burgh." 



The guid Wife count the Lawin. 

The chorus of this is part of an old song, one stanza 
of which I recollect. 

Every day my wife tells me 
That alb and brandy will ruin me ; 
But if gude liquor be my dead, 
This shall be written on my head.— 
O gude wife county Isfc, 



There 'llmever be Peace till Jajnie comes Hame. 

This tune is sometimes called — " There 's few gude 
Fellows when Willie's awa." — But I never have been 
able to meet with any thing else of the song than the 
title. 



I do confess thou art saefair. 

This song is altered from a poem by Sir Robert Ay- 
ton, private secretary to Mary and Anne, queens of 
Scotland. — The poem is to be found in James Wat- 
son's Collection of Scots Poems, the earliest collec- 
tion printed in Scotland. — I think that I have improved 



* Tocher — Marriage portion. 



184 

the simplicity of the sentiments, by giving them i 
Scots dress. 



I do confess thou art so fair, 

1 wad been o'er the lugs in luve ; 

Had I na found the slightest prayer 

That lips could speak, thy heart could muvc, 

I do confess thee sweet, but find 

Thou art sae thriftless o' thy sweets, 

Thy favors are the silly wind 
That kisses ilka thing it meets. 

See yonder rose-bud, rich in dew, 

Amang its native briers sae coy. 
How sune it tines its scent and hue 

When pu'd and worn a common toy! 

Sic fate e'er lang shall thee betide, 
Tho' thou may gayFy bloom a while ; 

Yet sune thou shalt be thrown aside. 
Like ony common weed and vile.* 

* The following are the old words of this song* : 

I do confess thou 'rt smooth and fair, 
And I might have gone near to love the^; 

Had I not found the slightest prayer 

That lips could speak, had power to move thee; 

But I can let thee now alone 

As worthy to be lov'd by none. 

1 do confess thou 'rt sweet, yet find 

Thee such an unthrift of thy sweets, 
Thy favours are but like the wind 

That kisseth every thing it meets. 
And since thon can'st with more than one, 
rhou 'rt worthy to he kiss'd by none. 

The morning rose, that untouched stands, 
Arm'd with her briars, how sweetly smells ! 

But pluck'd and strain'd through ruder hands. 
Her sweet no longer with her dwells ; 

But scent and beauty both are gone. 

And leaves fall from her, one by one. 



1 



185 

T'he Soger Laddie. 

The first verse of this is old: the rest is by Ram- 
say. — The tune seems to be the same witii a slow air, 
called '' Jacky Hume's Lament" — or, " The Hollin 
Buss" — or, « Ken ye what Meg o' the Mill has got- 
ten?'' 



Where wad bonie Annie lie ? 
The old name of this tune is. — 

" Whare '11 our Gudeman lie." 

A silly old stanza of it runs thus — 

O whare '11 our gudeman lie, 
Gudeman lie, gudeman lie, 

O whare '11 our gudeman lie. 
Till he shute o'er the simmer? 

Up amang the hen-bawks. 
The hen-bawks, the hen-bawks, 

Up amang the hen-bawks, 
Amang the rotten timmer. 



Galloway Tarn, 

I have seen an interlude (acted at a wedding) to 
this tune, called " The Wooing of the Mcdden." — 
These entertainments are now much worn out in this 



Such fate, ere long", will thee betide, 

When thou hast handled been awliile ! 
Like sere -flowers to be thrown aside. 

And I shall sigh, while some will smile. 
To see thy love to every one 
Hath broiight thee to be lov'd by none ! 

This song may be seen in Playford's Select ^Syres, 1659, fo- 
lio, under the title of a " Song to a forsaken Mistresse." 

It is also printed in Ellis's Specimens of the early English Po- 
ets^ vol. iii, p. 325. » 

K 2 



186 



part of Scotland. — Two are still retained in Niths- 
dale, viz. Jilly Pure Auld Glenae, and this one, The 
Wooing of the Maiden. 



^s I cam down by yon Castle WalL 
This is a very popular Ayrshire song. 



Lord Ronald my Son. 

This air, a very favourite one in Ayrshire, is evi- 
dently the original of Lochaber. — In this manner, most 
of our finest more modern airs have had their origin. 
Some early minstrel, or musical shepherd, composed 
the simple artless original air ; which being picked 
up by the more learned musician, took the improved 
form it bears. 



O^er the Moor amang the Heather,* 

This song is the composition of a Jean Glover, a girl 
who was not only a whore, but also a thief; and in one 
or other character has visited most of the Correction 



* Probably some of my readers will be curious to see this 
production ; I here subjoin it: — 

Comln thro' the craigs o' Kyle, 
Amang the bonnie blooming heather, 
There I met a bonnie lassie. 
Keeping of her yowes thegither, 

O^er the moor amang the heather. 
O'er the moor amang the heather^ 
There I met a bonnie lassie , 
Keeping a' her yoews thegither. 

Says I my dearie where is thy hame. 
In moor or dale pray tell me whether? 
She says, I tent the fleecy flocks 
That feed amang the blooming heather. 

O'er the moor, &c. 



187 

Houses in the West. — She was born I believe in Kil- 
marnock, — 1 took the song down from her singing as 
she was strolling through the country, with a slight-of- 
hand blackguard. 



To the Rose Bud. 

This song is the composition of a Johnson, a 

joiner in the neighbourhood of Belfast. — The tunc 
is by Oswald, altered, evidently, from Jockie's Gray 
Breeks. 



Yon wild mossy Mountains, 

This tune is by Oswald. The song alludes to part 
of my private history, which is of no consequence to 
the world to know. 

Yon wild mossy mountains sae lofty and wide, 
That nurse in their bosom the youth o' the Clyde, 
Where the grouse lead their coveys thro' the hea- 
ther to feed. 
And the shepherd tents his flock as he pipes on hie 
reed : 

Where the grouse^ ^c. 

We laid us down upon a bank, 
Sae warm and sunny was the weather, 
She left her flocks at large to rove 
Amang the bonnie banks of heather. 

O^er the moor, &e. 

While thus we lay she sang a sang. 
Till echo rang a mile and farther. 
And ay the burden o' the sang 
Was o'er the moor amang the heather. 

O^er the moor, &e. 

She charm'd my heart, and aye sinsyne, 
I could na think on any ithcr: 
By sea and sk> she shall be mine! 
The bonnie lass amang the ht alher. 

O^v the moor, Uc 



188 

Not Gowrie's rich valley, nor Forth's sunny shores, 
To me hae the charms o' yon wild> mossy moors ; 
For there, by a lanely, and sequester'd stream, 
Resides a sweet lassie, my thought and my dream. 

Amang the wild mountains shall still be my path. 
Ilk stream foaming down its ain green, narrow strath j 
For there, wi my lassie, the day lang 1 rove. 
While o'er us unheeded, flie the swift hours o' love. 

She is not the fairest, altho' she is fair ; 
O' nice education but sma' is her share ; 
Her parentage humble as humble can be ; 
But I lo'e the dear lassie because she lo'es me.* 

To beauty what man but maun yield him a prize. 
In her armour of glances, and blushes, and sighs ; 
And when wit and refinement ha*e polished her 

darts. 
They dazzle our een, as they flie to our hearts. 

But kindness, sweet kindness, in the fond sparkling 

e'e. 
Has lustre outshining the diamond to me ; 
And the heart-beating love, as 1 'm clasp'd in her 

arms, 
O, these are my lassie's all-conquering charms ! 



It is na^ Jean^ thy bonie Face, 

These were originally English verses : — I gave 
them their Scots dress. 



Eppie M'JVab 

e old song w 
cency 



The old song with this title has more wit than de- 



* I love my love because I know my love loves me." 

JKaid in Bedlam. 



189 

fVha is that at iny Bower Door y 

This tune is also known by the name of, '' Lass an 
[ come near thee." The words are mine. 
Wha is that at my bower door ? 

O wha is it but Findlay ; 
Then gae your gate ye'se nae be here ! 

Indeed maun I, quo' Findlay. 
What mak ye sae like a thief? 

come and see, quo' Findlay ; 
Before the morn ye '11 w^ork mischief; 

Indeed will I, quo' Findlay. 

Gif I rise and let you in ? 

Let me in, quo' findiay; 
Ye '11 keep me waukin wi' your din ; 

Indeed will I quo' Findlay. 
In my bower if • e should stay ? 

Let me stay, quo' Findlay ; 
I fear ye '11 bide till break o' day ; 

Indeed will I, quo' Findlay. 

Here this night if ye remain, 

1 '11 remain quo' > indlay ; 

I dread ye '11 learn the gate again ; 

Indeed will I, quo' Findlay ; 
What may pass within this bowxr, 

Let it pass, quo' Findlay ; 
Ye maun conceal 'till your last hour ; 

Indeed will I, quo' Findlay ! 



Thou art gane aiva. 

This tune is the same with, " Haud awa frae mc, 
Donald." 



The Tears I shed must ever fall. 

This song of genius, was composed by a Miss Cran- 
ston.* — It wanted four lines to make all the stanzas 



* This lady is now married to professor Dugald Stewai't- 



190 

suit the musix:, which I added, and are the four fi^s^ 
>ot the last stanza. 

No cold approach, no alter'd mein. 

Just what would make suspicion start ; 

No pause the dire extremes between, !■ 

He made me blest — and broke my heart! ^ 



The bonie wee Thing, 

Composed on my little idol, " The charming, lovely 
Davies." 



The tit her Morn. 

This tune is originally from the Highlands. — I have 
heard u Gaelic song to it, which I was told was very cle- 
ver, but not by any means a lady's song. 



A Mother^ a Lament for the Death of her Son, 

This most beautiful tune is, I think, the happiest 
composition of that bard-born genius, John Ricdel, of 
the family of Glencarnock, at Ayr. — The words were 
composed to commemorate the much lamented, and 
premature death of James Ferguson, Esq. jun. of 
Craiii;darroch. 



Daintie Davie, 

This song, tradition says, and the composition itself 
confirms it, was composed on the Rev. David William- 
son's begetting the daughter of Lady Cherrytrees with 
child, while a party of dragoons were searching her 
house to apprehend him for being an adherent to th^ 
solemn league and covenant. — The pious woman had 
put a lady's night-cap on him, and had laid him a-bed 
with her own daughter, and passed him to the soldiery 
as a lady, her daughter's bedfellow. — A mutilated stan- 
aa or two are to be found in Herd's collection, but the 



1^1 

•riginal song consists of five or six stanzas, and were 
their delicacy equal to their ivit and humour^ they 
would merit a place in any collection. — The first 
stanza is, — 

Being pursued by the dragoons, 
Within my bed he was laid down ; 
And weel I wcX he was \yorth his room, 
For he was my daintie Davie. 

Ramsay's song, Luckie Nansie, though he calls it an 
old song with additions, seems to be ail his own, ex- 
cept the chorus : 

I was a telling you, 
Luckie Nansie, luckie Nansie, 
Auid springs wad ding the new, 
But ye wad never trow me. 

Which I should conjecture to be part of a song, prior 
to the affair of Williamson. 



Bob d* Dumblane, 

Ramsay, as usual, has modernized this song. The 
original, which I learned on the spot, from my old 
hostess in the principal inn there is ; 

Lassie, lend me your braw hemp heckle, 
And I '11 lend you my thripplin-kame; 

My heckle is broken, i; c'jina be gotten, 
And we '11 gae dance the bob o' Dumblane. 

Twa gaed to the wood, to the wood, to the wood, 
Twa gaed to the wood — th^'ee came hi.nie; 

An' it be na weel bobbit. weel bobbit, weel bobbit, 
An' it be na weel bobbit, we '11 bob it again. 

I insert this b43ng to introduce the following anec- 
dote which I have heard well authenticated. In the 
evening of the d ly of the battle of Dumblane* (Sheriff 



* The battle of Duml)lanc, or Shcrlil-\Jui:-, was foug-Iit the 
13th of November, ITlo, between tlie Earl of Mar, for tli»5 



192 

Muir) when the action was over, a Scots officer in Ar. 
gyle's army, observed to His Grace, that he was afraid 
the rebels would give out to the world that they had , 
gotten the victory, — ^' W eel, weel," returned his Grace, 
alluding to the foregoing ballad, '^ if they think it be 
nae weel bobbit, we '11 bob it again." 



Chevalier, and the Duke of Ar^le, for the government. Both 
sides claimed the victory, the left wing of either army being 
routed. Ritson observes, it is very remarkable that the capture 
of Preston happened on the same day. 



JStote referred to zn page 144. 

A SHORT ACCOUNT OF JAMES TYTLER. 

JAMES TYTLER was the son of a country clergyman in 
the presbytery of Brechin, and brother to Dr. Tytler, the 
translator of Callimachus. He was instructed by his father in 
classical learning and school divinity, and attained an accu- 
rate knowledge of the Latin and Greek languages, and an 
extensive acquaintance with biblical literature and scholastic 
theology. Having discovered an early predilection for the 
medical profession, he was put apprentice to a surgeon in 
Forfar, and afterwards sent to attend the medical classes at 
Edmburgh. While a medical student, he cultivated experi- 
mental chemistry and controversial theology with equal assi- 
duity. Unfortunately his religious opinions, not deemed or- 
thodox, or calvinistical, connected him with a society of 
Glassites, and involved him in a marriage with a member of 
the society, which terminated in a separation. He now settled 
at Leith, as an apothecar}^, depending on the patronage of his 
religious connections; but his separation from the society, 
which happened soon after, with an unsteadiness that was na- 
tural to him, disappointed his expectations. When he ceased 
to be a Glassite, he ceased not to be a firm believer in the 
Christian revelation, and a zealous advocate of genuine Chris- 
tianity; but he never afterwards held communion with any 
denomination of Christians. The neglect of his business was 
the unavoidable consequence of his attention to religious 
dissentions; and having contracted debts to a considerable 
amount, he was obUged to remove to Berwick, and after- 
wards to Newcastle. In both places he was employed in pre- 



193 

paring chemical medicines for the drug-gists ; but the hbcra- 
lity of his employers being insufficient to preserve an encreas- 
ing family from the evils of penury, he returned to Edinburgh, 
in the year 1/72, in extreme poverty, and took refuge from 
the mole station of his creditors within the precincts of the 
sanctuary of Holyrood House, where debtors are privileged 
from arrests. At this period his wife deserted liim and their 
five children, the youngest only six months old, and returned 
to her relations. He solaced himself for the privation of do- 
mestic happiness by composing a humorous ballad entitled 
" The Pleasures of the Abbey^^^ which was his first attempt in 
poetry. In a description of its inhabitants, the author himself 
is introduced in the 16th and 17th stanzas. In the avocation 
of an author by profession, which he was now compelled to 
assume, he displayed a versatility of talent and a facility in 
writing, unexampled in the transactions of the press. He 
commenced his literary career by a publication entitled " /Js- 
»ays an the most important Subjects of naturnl and revealed lieli- 
^/o7«," which issued from the asylum for debtors, under the 
peculiar circumstances of being composed by himself, at the 
printing case, from his own conceptions, without a manuscfipi 
before him, and wrought off at a press of his own construc- 
tion, by his own hands. He left this singular work, which was 
to be completed in two volumes 8vo. unfinished, and turnei 
aside, to attack the opinions of a new religious sect callel 
Bereans, in a Letter to j\Ir. John Barclay on the Doctrine ofAij- 
mirance, in which he ag'ain performed the functions of aiithoi , 
compositor, and pressman. He next set forth with such as- 
sistance as he could find, a monthly publication, entitled T/,? 
Gentleman and Lady's Magazine, which was soon abandons d 
for The PP'eekly Ileviexv, a literary miscellany, winch, in i.s 
turn, was discontinued in a very short time. * These public i- 
tions, unavoidably disfigured with many ty]K)graphical de- 
formities, made liim known to the bookselleis; and from 
them he afterwards found constant empUnment in compila- 
tions, abridgments, translations and miscellaneous essays. He 
now ventured to leave the miserable apartments which, he had 
long occupied in the sanctuary for debtors, for more comiort- 
able lodgings, first at Restalrig, and afterwards in the city, 
and if his prudtiiice and steadiness liad been equal to his la- 
lents and industry, he might have eai-ned by his labours a 
complete maintenance, which never fed to his lot. As he wrote 
for subsistence, not from the vanity oraathorshij), he was en- 
gaged in many works which were 'anonymous, and in others 
-which appeared with the nam^s of his emphn ers. He is ( di- 
tor or author of the following works: The Weekly Mirror, a 
periodical publication wbich'hegan in 1780. A System of Ceo- 
graphy, in 8vo. A History of E din burg h, 12mo. A (Jeographia', 

S 



194 

Historical^ and Commercial trvammar, 2 vols. 8vo. ^ JRevieio of 
Dritchke7i^s Theory of hijlammatiori, 12mo. wiUi a practical de- 
dication. Itemarks o?t J\Ir. IHnherton^s Introduction to the His- 
tory of Scotland, 8vo. A poetical Translation of Virgil'' s Eclogues^ 
4to. A general Index to the Scots Magazine. A System of Cli£- 
mistry, written at the expence of a g-eniieman who was to j)iit 
his iiaine to it> unpublished. He gave his assistance in prepar- 
ing* the System of Anatomy published by A. Beli, and was an, 
occasional contributor to the Medical Commentaries, and other, 
periodical publications of the times. He was the principal edi- 
tor of the second edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, and^ 
finished, with incredible labour, a larg-e pioportion of tlie more' 
considerable scientific treatises and histories, and almost all 
the minor articles. He had an apartment assigned him in the 
printing-house, wliere he performed the offices of compile]*, and' 
corrector of the press, at a salary of sixteen shillings a iveeh.\^ 
When the third edition was undertaken, he was engaged as a j 
stated contributor, upon moi'e liberal terms, and wrote a larger'^ 
shai-e in the early volumes than is ascribed to him in the ge- 
Jieral preface. It was his misfortune to be contniually drawn - 
aside from the business of his employers by tlie delight he 
took in prosecuting experiments in chemistry, electricity, and 
mechanics, which consumed a large portion of his time and 
money. He conducted for some tune, with success, a manu- 
facturing process oi' which he was the inventor; but after he 
had disclosed his secret to the gentleman at whose expence 
it was carried on, he was dismissed, without obtaining either 
a share in the business, or a suitable compensation lor his ser- 
vices. He was the first in Scotland who adventured in a fire 
balloon, constiucted upon the plan of Montgoifier. He as- 
cended from Comely Garden, Edinburgh, amiast the acciama- ; 
tions of an immiense multitude, and descended at a distance 
of a quarter of a mile, owing to some unforeseen defect in the 
machinery. The failure of this adventure deprived him of the ' 
public favour and applause, and encreased lii.^ pecuniary dif- 
iiculties. He again had recourse to his pen for subsistence, and 
amidst the drudgery of writing, and the cares which pressed 
upon him daily, he exhilarated his spirits, at intervals, with a 
tune on the Irish Bagpipe, which he played with much sweet- 
ness, interposing occasionally a song of his own composition, 
sung with great animation. A solace of litis kind was well-" 
suited to the simplicity of his manners, tlie modesty of his 
disposition, and the integrity of his character, such as they 
were before he suffered his social propensities to violate the 
rules of sobriety. Forgetting his old friends, he associated 
with discontented persons, and entered into a deliberate ex- 
position of the abuses of government in " A Pamphlet on the . 
Excise,'* and more systematically in a periodical publication. 



195 

entitled The Historical Register, which gratified malignity by 
personal invective and intemperance of langiutge. He was con- 
cerned in the wild irrational plans of the British Convention, 
and published " ^ Hand Bill addressed to the People" written 
in so inflammatory a style, as rendered him obnoxious to g-o- 
vernment. A warrant was issued to apprehend him, and he 
left his native country and crossed the Atlantic for America, 
where he fixed hisTesidence in the town of Salem, in the state 
of Massachusetts, where he established a newspaper in con- 
nection with a printer, which he continued till his death, 
which happened in the year 1805, in the 58th year of his age. 

The editor cannot dismiss this note without acknowledg'ing' 
himself greatly obliged by the communications of Ur. Robert 
Anderson, of Edinburgh. 



COMMON PLACE BOOK, 

JOURNALS, 

FRAGMENTS OF LETTERS, 

MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS, 

iSfc. iSfc. 



ROBERT BURNS'S 

Commo7i Place^ or Scrap Book^ 

BEGUN IN APRIL, irSS.*^ 



^> Observations, Hints, Songs, Scraps of Poe« 
TRY, &c. by Robert Burness; a man who had little 
^rt in making money, and still less in keeping it ; but 
was, however, a man of some sense, a great deal of 
honesty, and unbounded good-will to every creature, 
rational and irrational. — As he was but little indebted 
to scholastic education, and bred at a plough-tail, his 
performances must be strongly tinctured with his un- 
polished, rustic way of life ; but as I believe they are 
really his own^ it may be some entertainment to a cu- 
rious observer of human nature to see how a plough- 
man thinks, and feels, under the pressure of love, am- 
bition, anxiety, grief, with the like cares and passions, 
which however diversified by the modesy and mannera 



* It has been the chief object in making this collection, not 
to omit any thing which might illustrate the character and 
feelings of the bard at different periods of his life. — Hence 
these " Observations*' are given entire from his manuscript. — 
A small portion appears in Dr. Carrie's edition, but the reader 
will pardon the repetition of it here when he considers how 
much so valuable a paper would lose by being given in frag- 
ments, and when he recollects that this volume may fall into 
the hands of those who have not the opportunity of referring 
to the large edition of the works. 

This re mark will apply equally to the Joitvnah and other 
])icces of which parts have before been pubhshed. 

E 



200 

ef life, operate pretty much alike, I believe, on all the 
species. 

<< There are numbers in the world who do not want 
sense to make a figure, so much as an opinion of their 
own abilities to put them upon recording their obser- 
vations, and allowing them the same importance which 
they do to those, which appear in print." 

Shenstone, 

<* Pleasing, when youth is long expired, to trace 
The forms our pencil, or our pen designed ! 

Such was our youthful air, and shape, and face. 
Such the soft image of our youthful mind.'* 



jifiril^ 1783. 

Notwithstanding all that has been said against love 
respecting the folly and weakness it leads a young in- 
experienced mind into ; still I think it in a great mea- 
sure deserves the highest encomiums that have been 
passed upon it. If any thing on earth deserves the 
name of rapture or transport it is the feelings of green 
eighteen in the company of the mistress of his heart> 
when she repays him with an equal return of affec- 
tion. 



August, 

There is certainly some connection between love, 
and music, and poetry ; and therefore, I have always 
thought it a fine touch of nature, that passage in a mo- 
dern love composition, 

** As tow'rds her cott he jogg'd long. 
Her name was frequent in his song." 

For my own part I never had the least thought or 
inclination of turning poet till 1 got once heartily in 
love, and then rhyme and song were, in a manner, the 
spontaneous language of my heart. The following 



201 

composition was the first of my performances, and 
done at an eariy period of life, when my heart glowed 
with honest warm simplicity; unacquainted, and un- 
corrupted with the ways of a wicked world. The per- 
fornunce is, indeed, very puerile and silly ; but 1 am 
always pleased with it, as it recalls to my mind those 
happy days when my heart was yet honest, and my 
tongue was sincere. The subject of it was a young 
girl who really deserved all the praises I have bestow- 
ed on her. I not only had this opinion of her then— 
but I actually think so still, now that the spell is long 
since broken, and the enchantment at an end. 

Tune — I am a man unmarried. 

O once I lov'd a bonnie lass, 

Ay, and 1 love her still, 
And whilst that honor warms my breast 

I '11 love my handsome Nell- 

Fal Lai de ral, isfc. 

As bonnie lasses I hae seen, 

And mony full as braw, 
But for a modest gracefu* mein 

The like I never saw. 

A bonnie lass I will confess, 

Is pleasant to the e'e, 
But without some better qualities 

She 's no a lass for me. 

But Nelly's looks are blythe and sweet, 

And what is best of a', 
Her reputation is complete, 

And fair without a flaw. 

She dresses ay sae clean and neat, 

Both decent and genteel: 
And then there 's something in her gait 

Gars ony dress look weel. 



202 

A gaudy dress and gentle air 

May slightly touch the heart. 
But it 's innocence and modesty 

That polishes the dart. 

^Tis this in Nelly pleases me, 

'Tis this enchants my soul; 
For absolutely in my breast 

She reigns without control. 

Fal lal de ral, ^c. 

Criticism on the foregoing song. 

Lest my works should be thought below criticism; 
©r meet with a critic who, perhaps, will not look on 
them with so candid and favorable an eye ; 1 am de- 
termined to criticise them myself. 

The first distich of the first stanza is quite too 
much in the flimsy strain of our ordinary- street bal- 
lads ; and on the other hand, the second distich is too 
much in the other extreme. The expression is a lit- 
tle awkward, and the sentiments too serious. Stan- 
za the second I am well pleased with; and I think 
it conveys a fine idea of that amiable part of the sex— 
the agreeables ; or what in our Scotch dialect we call 
a sweet sonsy lass. The third stanza has a little of the 
flimsy turn in it ; and the third line has rather too se- 
rious a cast. The fourth stanza is a very indifferent 
one ; the first line is, indeed, all in the strain of the 
second stanza, but the rest is mostly expletive. The 
thoughts in the fifth stanza come finely up to my fa- 
vorite idea — a sweet sonsy lass : the last line, however, 
halts a little. The same sentiments are kept up with 
equal spirit and tenderness in the sixth stanza; but the 
second and fourth lines ending with short syllables 
hurt the whole. The seventh stanza has several mi- 
nute faults ; but I remember I composed it in a wild 
enthusiasm of passion, and to this hour I never recol- 
lect it, but my heart melts, my blood sallies at the re- 
membrance. 



203 

SeJUember. 

I entirely agree with that judicious philosopher, Mr. 
Smith, in his excellent Theory of Moral ^entiments^ 
that remorse is the most painful sentiment that can 
embitter the human bosom. Any ordinary pitch of for- 
titude may bear up tolerably well under those calami- 
ties, in the procurement of which we ourselves have 
had no hand; but \\hen our own follies, or crimes, 
have made us miserable and wretched, to bear up with 
manly firmness, and at the same time have a proper 
penitential sense of our misconduct, is a glorious ef- 
fort of self-commaiid. 

Of all the numerous ills that hurt our peace, 

That press the soul, or wring- the mind with anguish> 

Beyond comparison the worst are those 

That to our folly or our guilt we owe. 

In every other circumstance, the mind 

Has this to say — '' It was no deed of mine ;'* 

But when to all the evil of misfortune 

This sting is added — -" Blame thy foolish self I"^ 

Or worser far, the pangs of keen remorse ; 

The torturing, gnawing consciousness of guilt — • 

Of guilt, perhaps, where we 've involved others; 

The young, the innocent, who fondly lov'd us. 

Nay, more, that very love their cause of ruin! 

O burning hell 1 in ail thy store of torments, 

There 's not a keener lash! 

Lives there a man so firm, who, while his heart 

Teeis all the bitter horrors of this crime, 

Can reason dov/n its agonizing throbs; 

And, after proper purpose of amendment, 

CLf.n iirn^iy force his jarring thoughts to peace ? 

O, happy 1 happy! enviable man! 

O gloiious magnanimity of soul! 



Murcfu 1784. 

I have often ol^scrvcd, in the course of my expe- 
rience oi" hum'an life, that CAcry ma^-i, r.ven tlie worst, 



204 

has somethinc^ good about him ; though very often 
nothing else than a happy temperament of constitu- 
tion inclining him to this or that viii le. For this rea* 
tjon, no man can say in what degree any other person, 
besides himself, can be, with strict justice, called 
wicked. Let any of the stiictest character for regula- 
rity of conduct among us, examine impartially how 
many vices he has never been guilty of, not from any • 
care or vigilance, but for want of opportunity, or some I 
accidental circumstance intervening; how many of 
the weaknesses of mankind he has escaped, because 
he was out of the line of such temptation ; and, what 
often, if not ahvays, weighs more than all the res^, 
how much he is iDdebted to the world's good opinion, 
because the world does not know all: 1 say, any man 
vA\o can thus think, will scan the failings, nay, the 
faults and cringes, of mankind around him, with a 
brother's eye. 

I have often courted the acquaintance of that part of 
mankind commonly known by the ordinary phrase of 
blackguardly sometimes farther than was consistent 
with the Safety of my character; those v/ho, by 
thoughtless prodigality or headstrong passions, have 
been diiven to ruin. Though disgraced by follies, nay 
som.etiires ^* stained with guilt, ****** 
* *." I have yet found among them, in not a few in- 
stances> sonte of the noblest virtues, magnanimity, 
generosity, disinterested friendship, and even mo- 
desty. 



J/irii, 

As T am what the men of the world, if they knew 
such a man, v/ould call a whimsical mortal, I have va- 
rious sources of pleasure and enjoyment, which are, 
in a manner, pectdiar to myself, or some here and 
there such other out-of-the-way person. Such is the 
peculiar pleasure I take in the season of the winter, 
more than the rest of the year. This, 1 believe, may 



205 

be partly owing to my raisfortunes giving my mmd a 
II melancholy cast ; but there is something even in the 

" Mighty tempest, and the hoary waste 
Abrupt and deep, stretch'd o'er the buried earth,"—- 

I i^vhich raises the mind to a serious sublimity, favora- 
ble to every thing great and noble. There is scarcely 
any earthly object gives me more — I do not know if 1 
should call it pleasure — but something which exalts 
me, something which enraptures me — than to walk 
f in the sheltered side of a wood, or high plantation, in 
' a cloudy winter-day, and hear the stormy wind howl- 
ing among the trees, and raving over the plain. It is 
my best season for devotion : my mind is rapt up in 
a kind of enthusiasm to Hi?n^ who, in the pompous 
language of the Hebrew bard, " walks on the wings of 
the wind." In one of these seasons, just after a train of 
misfortunes, I composed the following : 

The w^intry west extends his blast, . 

And hail and rain does blaw ; 
Or, the stormy north sends driving forth 

The blinding sleet and snaw : 
While tumbling brown, the burn comes down. 

An' roars frae bank to brae ; 
And bird and beast in covert rest, 

And pass the heartless day. 

<' The sweeping blast, the sky o'ercast,"* 

The joyless winter-day. 
Let others fear, to me more dear 

Than all the pride of May: 
The tempest's howl, it soothes my soul. 

My griefs it seems to join, 
The leafless trees my fancy please, 

Their fate resembles mine! 



' Dr. Young. 



206 

Thou PowW Sufireme^ whose mighty scheme 

These woes of mine fulfil, 
Here, firm, I rest, they must be blest, 

Because they are Thy will 1 
Then all I want (O, do thou grant 

This one request of mine !) 
Since to enjoy thou dost deny, 

Assist me to resign. 



Shenstone finely observes, that love -verses, writ 
without any real passion, are the most nauseous of all 
•Conceits; and I have often thought that no man can 
be a proper critic of love-composition, except he him- 
self, in one or more instances, have been a warm vota- 
ry of this passion. As I have been all along a misera- 
ble dupe to love, and have been led into a thousand 
weaknesses and follies by it, for that reason I put the | 
more confidence in my critical skill, in distinguishing 
foppery and conceit, from real passion and nature. 
Whether the follov/ing song will stand the test, I will 
not pretend to say, because it is my own ; only I can 
siiy it was, at the time, genuine from the heart. 

Behind yon hills where Lugar flows, 

'Mang moors an' mosses many, O, 
The wint'ry sun the day has clos'd, 

And I '11 awa to Nannie, O. 
The westlin wind blaws lowd an' shrill ; : 

The night 's baith mirk and rainy, O, 
But I '11 get my plaid an' out I '11 steal, \ 

An' owre the hills to Nannie, O. 

My Nannie 's charming, sweet, an' young ; ' 
Nae artfu' wiles to win ye, O : f 

May ill befa' the flattering tongue 
That wad beguile my Nannie, O. 

Her face is fair, her heart is true, ' 

As spotless as she 's bonnie, O; 
The op'ning gowan, wet wi' dew, 

Nae purer is than Nannie, O, 



207 

A country lad is my degree, 

An' few there be that ken me, O, 

But what care I how few ihey be, 
1 'm welcome ay lo Nannie, O. 

My riches a's my penny-fee, 
An' I maun gticie it c 'imie, O; 

But wari's geai ne'er troubles me, 
My thoughts are a* my Nannie. O. 

Our auld guidman delights to view 
His sheep an' kye thrive bonnie, O; 

But 1 'm as biythe thnt hauas his pleugh. 
An' has nue care but Nunnie, O. 

Corne weelcome woe, I care na by, 
1 'il tak what Hcw.v'n will sen' me, O ; 

Nae ither care in life have I, 

But live, an' love my Nuniue, O. 



March, 1784. 

There was a certain period of my life that my spi- 
rit Vr'as broke by repeated losses and disasters, which 
;hre Jtened, and indeed effected, the utter ruin of ray 
IbrHine. My body too was attacked by the most dread- 
iil distem^per, a hypochondria, or confirmed melan- 
:holy : In this wretched state, the recollection of 
yhich makes me yet shudder, I hung my harp on the 
villow trees, except in some lucid intervals, in one of 
^hich I composed the following — 

O THOU Great Being! what thou art 

Surpasses me to know ; 
Yet sure I am, that known to thee 

Are all thy works below. 

Thy creature here before thee stands, 

All wretched anddistrcst; 
Yet sure those ills that wring my soul 

Obey thy high behest. 



208 

Sure Thou, Almighty, canst aot agt 

From cruelty or wrath ; 
O, free my weary eyes from tears, 

Or close them fast in death 1 

But if I must afflicted be. 
To suit some wise design ; 

Then man my soul with firm resolves 
To bear and not repine ! 



AjiriL 

The following song is a wild rhapsody, miserably 
deficient in versification, but as the sentiments are the 
genuine feelings of my heart, for that reason I have a 
particular pleasure in conning it over. 

SONG. 

Tune — The Weaver and his Shuttle, O. 

My Father was a Farmer upon the Carrick border, O 
And carefully he bred me in decency and order, O . 
He bade me act a manly part, though I had ne'er a 1 

farthing, O 
For without an honest manly heart, no man was worth 

regarding, O. 

Then out into the world my course 1 did determine, O 

Tho' to be rich was not my wish, yet to be great was 
charming, O 

My talents they were not the worst ; nor yet my edu- 
cation : O 

Resolv'd was I, at least to try, to mend my situation, O. 

In many a way, and vain essay, I courted fortune's fa- 
vor ; O 

Some cause unseen, still stept between, to frustrate 
each endeavour ; O 

Sometimes by foes I was o'erpower'd ; sometimes by 
friends forsaken ; O 

And when my hope was at the top, I still was worst 
mistaken, O. 



211 

^iugust. 

The foregoing was to have been an elaborate disser- 
tation on the various species of men ; but as T cannot 
please myself in the arrangement of iny ideas, I must 
wait till farther experience, and nicer observation, 

throw more light on the subject. In the mean 

time I shall set down the following frcigment, which, 
as it is the genuine language of my heart, will en .hie 
any body to determine which of the classess 1 belong 
:o. 

Green groiv the rashes^ 0, 

Green grow the rashes^ O, 
The sweetest hours that e'er I s/ientj 

Were sfient amang the lasses^ O. 

There 's nought but care on ev'ry ban*. 

In ev'ry hour that passes, O ; 
What sigrdfies the life o' man, 
\ An' 'twere na for the lasses, O. 

The warly race may riches chase, 
An' riches still may fly them, O; 

An' tho' at last they catch them fast. 
Their hearts can ne'er enjoy them, O. 

But gie me a canny hour at e'en, 

My arms about my dearie, O ; 
An' warly cares, an' warly men, 

May a' gae tapsalteerie, O ! 

For you sae douse, ye sneer at this, 
Ye 're nought but senseless asses, 

The wisest man the warl' e'er saw. 
He dearly lov'd the lasses, O ! 

Auld Nature swears, the lovely dears 
Her noblest work she classes, O ; 

Her prentice han' she try'd on man, 
An' then she made the lasses, O ! 

Green grow the rashes^ O, ^r. 



%l 



212 



As the grand end of human life is to cultivate an 
intercourse with that being to whom we owe life, 
with every enjoyment that renders life delightful ; and 
to maintain an integrili\ e conduct to^vards our fellow 
creatures; that so, by fornnng piety and virtue into 
habit, we may be fit members for that society of the 
pious, and the good, which reason and revelation 
teach us to expect beyond the grave — I do not see 
that the turn of mind, and pursuits of such a one as 
the above verses d(iscribe — one who spends the hours 
and thoughts which the vocations of the day can 
spare, ^vith Ossian, Sh£ikspeare, Thomson, Sl^enstone,'^ 
Sterne, k.c. or as the maggot takes him, a gun, a fid-; 
die, or a song to make or mend ; and at all times some 
heart's-dear bonie lass in view — I say I do not see that 
the turn of n)ind and pursuits of such a one are in the 
least more inimical to the sacred interests of piety and . 
virtue, than the, even lawful, bustling and straining af- 
ter the world's riches and honors : and I do not see . 
but he may gain heaven as well, which, by the bye, is no 
mean consideration, who steals through the vale of life, 
amusing himself with every little flower that fortune 
throws in his way ; as he who straining straight for- 
ward, and perhaps spattering all about him, gains 
some of life's little eminences, where, after all, he can 
only see and be seen a little more conspicuously, than 
what in the pride of his heart, he is apt to term the 
poor, indolent devil he has left behind him. 



Jlugiist. 

A prayer, wiien fainting fits, and other alarming 
syniptoms of pleurisy or some other dangerous disor- 
der, which indeed still threatens me, first put nature 
on the alarm. 

O THOU unknown. Almighty Cause 

Of all my hope and fear! 
In whose dread presence, ere an hour, 

Perhaps I must appear. 



209 

Then sore harrass'd, and tir'd at last, with fortune's 

vain delusion ; O 
I dropt my schemes, like idle dreams, and came to 

this conclusion ; O 
The 'past was bad, and the future hid; its good or ill 

untryed; O 
But the present hour was in my pow'r, and so I would 

enjoy it, O. 

No help, nor hope, nor view had I ; nor person to be- 
friend me ; O 

So I must toil, and sweat and broil, and labor to sustain 
me, O 

To plough and sow, to reap and mow, my father bred 
me early ; O 

For one, he said, to labor bred, was a match for for- 
tune fairly, O. 

Thus all obscure, unknown, and poor, thro' life I 'm 
doom'd to wander, O 

Till down my weary bones I lay in everlasting slum- 
ber: O 

No view nor care, but shun whate'er might breed me 
pain or sorrow ; O 

I live to day, as well 's 1 may, regardless of to-morrow, 
O. 

But cheerful still, I am as well, as a monarcli in a pa- 
lace, O 

Tho' fortune's frown still hunts me down, with all her 
wonted malice; O 

I make indeed, my dtiily bread, but ne'er can make it 
farther ; O 

But as daily bread is all I need, I do not much regard 
her, O. 

When sometimes by my labor I earn a little money ^ O 
Some unforseen misfortune conies generally upon 
me; O 

T 2 



210 

Mischance, mistake, or by neglect, or my good-na- 

tur'd foily ; O 
But come what will, T ve sworn it still, 1 '11 ne'er be j 

melancholy, O. I 

All you who follow wealth and power with unremit- 
ting ardor, O 

The more in this you look for bliss, you leave your 
view the farther ; O 

Had you the wealth Potosi boasts, or nations to adore 
you, O 

A cheerful honest hearted clown I will prefer before 
you, O. 



AfiriL 

I think the whole species of young men may be na- . 
turally enough divided into two grand classes, which 
I shall call the grave and the merry ; though, by the 
bye, these terms do not with propriety enough express 
my ideas. The grave I shall cast into the usual divi- 
sion of those who are goaded on by the love of money, 
and those whose darling wish is to make a figure in 
the world. The merry are the men of pleasure of all 
denominations ; the jovial lads, who have too much 
Sre and spirit to have any settled rule of action ; but, 
without much deliberation, follow the strong impulses 
©f nature: the thoughtless, the careless, the indolent 
— in particular he^ who, with a happy sw eetness of na- 
tural temper, and a cheerful vacancy of thought, steals 
through life — generally, indeed, in poverty and obscu- 
rity ; but poverty and obscurity are only evils to him 
who can sit gravely down and make a repining com- 
parison between his own situation and that of others; 
and lastly, to grace the quorum, such are, generally, 
those whose heads are capable of all the towerings of 
^genius, and whose hearts are w^armed with all the de- 
licacy of feeling. 



213 

If I have wander'd in those paths 

Of life I ought to shun ; 
As somethings loudly, in my breast, 

Remonstrates 1 have done ; 

Thou know'st that Thou hast formed me 
With passions wild and strong ; 

And listening to their witching voice 
Has often led me wrong. 

Where human weakness has come short, 

Ov frailty stept aside, 
Do thou >^il Good I for such thou art, 

In shades of darkness hide. 

Where with intention I have err'd, 

No other plea I have, 
But, Thou art good; and goodness still 

Delighteth to forgive. 



August, 

Misgivings in the hour of desfiondcncy and prospect 
of detith. 

Why am I loth to leave this earthly scene ! 

Have I so found it full of pleasing charms! 
Soiiie drops of joy with draughts of ill betvveen; 

Some gleams of sunshine 'mid renewing storms? 
Is JL departing pangs my soul alarms ? 

Or death's unlovely, dreary, dark abode? 
For guilt, for guilt, my terrors are in arms; 

I tremble to approach an angry God, 
And justly smart beneath his sin-avenging rod. 

Fain would I Kay, '^ Forgive my foul oiTcnce 1" 
Fain promise never more to disobey; 

But, sliould my author he.vlth again dispense, 
Again 1 might desert fair virtues way; 



214 

Again in folly's path might go astray; 

Again exalt the brute and sink the man ; 
Then how should 1 for heavenly mercy pray. 

Who act so counter heavenly mercy's plan ? 
Who sin so oft have mourn'd yet to temptation rani* 

O Thou, great governor of all below ! 

If 1 may dure a lifted eye to Thee, 
Thy nod can make the tempest cease to blow, 

Or still the tumult of the raging sea; 
With that controling pow'r assist ev'n me, 

Those headlong furious passions to confine ; 
For all unfit I feel my powers to be, 

To rule their torrent in th' allowed line, 
Oj aid me with thy helpx, Omnifiotence Divine ! 



JLooTisus yrom my owJi Se7isations. 

May, 

I don't well know what is the reason of it, but some 
liow or other though I am, when 1 have a mind, pret- 
ty geriCrally beloved; yet, I never could get the art of 
con; man ding respect.*— I imagine it is owing to my 



* Tiicre is no doubt that if Burns at any lime really laboured 
under this infirmity, he was successful in enquiring- into its 
causes, and also in his efforts to amend it. When he was at a 
later period of life, introduced into tlie superior circles of so- 
ciety, he did not appear then as a cypher, nor did he by any 
violat'on of the dictates of common sense, give any occasion, 
even to those who were superciliously disposed to look upon 
him v/ith contempt. On the contrary? he was conscious of his 
own moral and intellectual w^orth, and never abated an inch 
of his just claims to due consideration. The following extract 
of a letter from his g-reat and good biographer, who was an 
excellent judge of human character, bears an honorable testi- 
mony to the habitual firmness, decision, and independence of 
his mind, which constitute the only solid-basis of respectabi- 
lity. 

"Burns was a very singular man in the strength and varie- 
ty of his faculties. — 1 saw- him^ and once only, in the year 1^92. 



215 

being deficient in what Sterne calls " that understrap- 
ping virtue of discretion." — I am so apt to a lafisus 
linguc^^ that I sometimes think the character of a 
certain great man, 1 have read of somewhere, is very- 
much afirofios to myself — that he was a compound of 
great talents and great folly. N. B. To try if i can dis- 
cover the causes of this wretched infirmity, and, if pos- 
sible, to amend it. 



SONG. 



Tho* cruel fate should bid us part, 

As far 's the pole and line ; 
Her dear idea round my heart 

Should tenderly entwine. 

Tho' mountains frown and desarts howly 

And oceans roar between ; 
Yet, dearer than my deathless souL 

I still would love my Jean. 



FRAGMENT. 
Tune — John Anderson my Joe- 

One night as I did wander, 
When corn begins to shoot, 

I sat me down to ponder, 
Upon an auld tree root : 



We conversed together for about an hour in tbe street of Dum- 
fries, and engaged in some very animated conversation — We 
differed in our sentiments sufficiently to be rather vehement- 
ly engaged — and this interview gave me a more lively as well 
as forcible impression of his talents than any part of his wi-it- 
ings. — He was a great orator, — an orig-inal and very versa-* 
tile genius." 

:^ci October, 1799. 



216 

Auld Aire ran by before me. 
And bicker'd to the seas ; 

A cushat* crouded o'er me 
That echoed thro' the braes 



FRAGMENT. 

Tune — Daintie Davie. 

There was a lad was born in Kylc,t 
But what na day o' what na style 
I doubt its hardly worth the while 
To be sae nice wi' Robin. 

Robin was a rovin^ boy^ 

Rannn^ rovin*^ rantiii* rovin* ; 

Robin was a rovin* ^^V'i 
Rantin' rovin^ Robin, 

Our monarch's hindmost year but ane 
Was five and twenty days begun, 
. 'Twas then a blast o' Juuwar Win' 
Blew hansel in on Robin, 

The gossip keckit in his loof, 
Quo' scho wha lives will see the proof, 
This waly boy will be nae coof, 
I think we '11 ca' him Robin, 

He '11 hae misfortunes great and sma'^ 
But ay a heart aboon them a' ; 
He '11 be a credit 'till us a', 
We '11 a' be proud o' Robin, 

But sure as three times three mak nine;, 
I see by ilka score and line. 
This chap will dearly like our kin', 
So leeze me on thee Robin, 



* The dove, or wild pigeon. 
f Kyl€-^2L district of Ayrshire. 



217 

Guid faith quo* scho I doubt you Sir, 
Ye gar the lasses * * * * 
But twenty fauts ye may hae waur 
So blessin's on thee, Robin I 

Robin was a rovin^ ^oy^ 

Rantin* rovin\ ranlin* rovin* ; 

Robin was a rovin^ Roy^ 
Rantin* rovin* Robin. 



ELEGY 

On the Death of Robert Ruisseaux,* 

Now Robin lies in his last lair, 

He '11 gabble rhyme, nor sing nae mair, 

Cauid poverty, wi' hungry stare, 

Nae mair shall fear him ; 
Nor anxious fear, nor cankert care 

E*er mair come near him. 

To tell the truth, they seldom fash*t him, 
Except the moment that they crush't him: 
For sune as chance or fate had husht 'em 

Tho' e'er sae short, 
Then wi' a rhyme or song he lash't 'em, 

And thought it sport. — 

Tho* he was bred to kintra wark. 

And counted was baith wight and stark, 

Yet that was never Robin's mark 

To mak a man ; 
But tell him, he was learn'd and dark, 

Ye roos'd him then If 



• RuisseauoB — a play on his own name 
I Ye roos'd — ye prais'd. 
U 



218 

However I am pleased with the works of our Scots! 
poets, p; riiculariy the excellent Ramsay, and the still' 
. more excellent Fergusson, yet I am hurt to see other 
places of Scotland, their towns, rivers, woods, haughs, 
kc. immortalized in such celebrated peiformances, ;. 
while my dear native country, the ancient bailieiies of i 
Carrick, Kyle, and Cunningham, famous both in an- 
cient and modern times for a gallant and warlike race 
of inhabitants; a country where civil and particularly 
religious liberty have ever found their first support, . 
and their last asylum ; a country, the birth-place of 
many famous philosophers, soldiers, and statesmen, 
and the scene of many important events recorded in 
Scottish history, particularly a great many of the ac- 
tions of the glorious Wallace, the Saviour of his 
country; yet, we never have had one Scotch poet of. 
any eminence, to make the fertile banks of Irvine, the 
romantic woodlands and sequestered scenes on Aire, 
and the healthy mountainous source, and winding 
s^yeep of Do on, emulate Tay, Forth, Ettrick, Tweed, 
(kc. This is a complaint I would gladly remedy, but 
alas ! I am far unequal to the task, both in native ge- 
nius and education.* Obscure I am, and obscure I 



* This kind of feeling" appears to have animated the poet's 
bosom at a very early period of his life. In a poetical epistle 
addressed to *'Mrs. Scott, of Wauchope House," dated March, 
1787, he alludes to the sensations of his early days in tlie fol- 
lowing" tender strain of sentiment. 

GUIDWIFE, 

I mind it weel, in early date, 

"When I was beardless, young" and blate, 

An' first could thresh the barn, 
Or baud a yokin at the pleug"h. 
An' tho' fu' foughten sair eneugh. 

Yet unco proud to learn. 

Ev'n then a wish (I mind its power) 
A wish, that to my latest hour 



219 

i-niist be, though no young- poet, nor young soldierV 
heart, ever beat more fondly for fame than mine — 

And if there is no other scene of being 
Where my insatiate wish may have its fill ; — 
This something at my heart that heaves for room, 
My best, my dearest part was made in vain. 



A FRAGMENT. 

Tune — I had a horse and T had nae mair. 

When first I came to Stewart Kyle, 

My mind it was nae steady. 
Where'er I gaed, where'er I rade 

A mistress still I had ay: 

But when I came roun' by Mauchline town, 

Not dreadin' any body, 
My heart was caught before I thought. 

And by a Mauchline lady. 



Sept, 

There is a great irregularity in the old Scotch 
songs, a redundancy of syllables with respect to that 
exactness of accent and measure that the English po- 
etry requires, but which glides in, most melodiously, 
with the respective tunes to which they are set. For 
instance, the fine old song of The Mill^ Mill^ O, to give 
it a plain prosaic reading it halts prodigiously out of 



Shall strongly heave my breast; 
That I for poor auld Scotland's sake. 
Some useful plan, or beuk could make, 

Or sing a song at least. 

The rough bur-thistle spreading wide 

Amang the bearded bear, 
I turned my weeding heuk aside, 

An' spar'd the symbol dear 



220 

measure ; on the other hand, the song set to the same * 
tune in Bremner's collection of Scotch songs, which j 
begins " To Faiiv.y fair could I imfiart^ IS^cP it is most 
exact measure, and yet, let them both be sung before 
a real critic, one above the biasses of prejudice^j biit a 
thorough judge of nature-,— how flat and spiritless will 
the last appear, how trite, and lamely methodiccil, com- 
pared with the wild-warbling cadence, the heart-mov- 
ing melody of the first. — This is particularly the case 
with all those airs w^hich end with a hypermetrical 
syllable. There is a degree of wild irregularity in ma- 
ny of the compositions and fragments which are daily 
sung to them by compeers, the common people— *.a 
certain happy arrangement of old Scotch syllables, and 
yet, very frequently, nothing, not even like Rhyme, 
or sameness of jingle, at the ends of the lines. This 
has made me sometimes imagine that, perhaps it 
might be possible for a Scotch poet, with a nice judi- 
cious ear, to set compositions to many of our most fa- 
vorite airs, particularly that class of them mentioned 
above, independent of rhyme altogether. 



There is a noble sublimity, a heart^melting tender- 
ness, in some of our ancient ballads, which shew them 
to be the v»'ork of a masterly hand : and it has often 
given me many a heart*aclie to reflect, that such gio*^ 
rious old bards-^-^bardrs who very probably owed all their 
talents to native genius, yet have described the ex»> 
ploitg of hferOe55 the pangc^ of disappoirltni^'llt, and thg 
meltings of love, with such fine strokes of nature-«-» 
that their very names (O how mortifying to a bard's 
vanity !) are now '' buried among the wreck of things 
which were." 

O ye illustrious names unknown ! who could feel 
so strongly and describe so well ; the last, the meanest 
of the muses train — one who, though far inferior to 
your flights, yet eyes your path, and with trembling 
wing would sometimes soar after you— a poor rustij; 



221 

bard unknown, pays this sympathetic pang to your 
memory 1 Some of you tell us, with all the charms of 
verse, that you have been unfortunate in the world — 
unfortunate in love : /je too has felt the loss of his lit- 
tle fortune, the loss of friends^ and, worse than all, the 
loss of the woman he adored. Like you, all his conso- 
lation was his muse: she taught him in rustic mei- 
sures to complain. Happy could he have done it with 
your strength of imagination and flow of verse. May 
the turf lie lightly on your bones! and may you now 
enjoy that solace and rest which this world rarely 
gives to the heart tuned to all the feelings of poesy 
and love. 



Se/iL 

The following fragment is done,* something in imi- 
tation of the manner of a noble old Scotch piece called 
McMillan's Peggy, and sings to the tune of Galla \Va- 
ter. — My Montgomerie's Peggy was my deity for six 
or eight months. She had been bred, (though as the 
world says, without any just pretence for it,) in a style 
of life rather elegant — but as Vanburgh says in one of 

his comedies, "My d d star found me out" there 

too; for though I began the affair merely in a gaiete 
de cceur^ or to tell the truth, w^hich will scarcely be be- 
lieved, a vanity of showing my parts in courtship, parti- 
cularly my abilities at a Billet-doux^ which I always 
piqued myself upon, made me lay siege to her; and 
when,ias I always do in my foolish gallantries, I had bat- 
tered myself into a very warm affection for her, she told 
me, one day, in a flag of truce, that her fortress liad 
been for some time before the rightful property of 
another; but, with the greatest friendship and polite- 
ness, she oficred me every alliance except actual pos- 



'' This passag'e explains the love letters to Peg'g-y 



222 

session. I found out afterwards that what she told tne 
of a pre-engagement was true ; but it cost me some 
heart-achs lo get rid of the affair. 

I have even tried to imitate in this extempore thing, 
the irregularity of the rhyme, which, when judfcious- 
ly done, has such a fine effect on the ear. — 

FRAGMENT. 

Tune — Gallawater. 

Altho' my bed were in yon muir, 
Amang the heather, in my plaidie, 

Yet happy, happy would 1 be 

Had I my dear Montgomerie's Peggy .'■^-- 

When o'er the hill beat surly storms, 
And winter nights were dark and rainy; 

I 'd seek some delh and in my arms ^— . 

I 'd shelter dear Montgomerie's Peggy.' — IB I 

Were X a Raron proud and high, 

And horse and servants waiting ready. 

Then a' 'twad gie o' joy to me, 

The sharing with Montgomerie's Peggy.-— 



Sefitember, 

Tliere is another fragment in imitation of an old 
Scotch song, well known among the country ingle 
sides.-™! cannot tell tlie name, neither of the sons: or 
theturic, out tiiey ire in v.nc unison with one ai..Hner. 
— Bv the way^ t-^ese oid Scottish songs are so nobly 
sentimentaU that when one would compose them; to 
?:'.:/■ h Ur ^: ^% ; -i our Scotch phrase is, over and over, 
:i the ica:: ^t ^- ..y to catcli the inspiration and raise 
the \y..:C: i: 't: th;^^ G.iOvioVo Cnlhi.i£i.:.:^ni sn Btrcnc^lv 
ch'ir:v, c- .; :'• o c-'^ r-(: -^c'^trh poetry, I shojl here 
r'-: r> -^v ^,:- - -^r ;r. i:\ \ '' picce iTieiuioned ;^-hove. 
hotn to TQavl; the son c: ape;, tuiif^ I rr^ci^r-. cind likewise 



223 

as a debt I owe to the author, as the repeating of that 
terse has lighted up my flame a thousand times.*— 

«' When cloufds in skies do come together 
To hide the brightness of the sun, 

There will surely be some pleasant weather 
When a' their storms are past and gone."~*^ 

Though fickle fortune has deceived me. 
She promised fair and perform 'd but ill ; 

Of mistress, friends, and wealth bereuv'd me, ^ 
Yet I bear a heart shall support me still. — 

I '11 act with prudence as far 's I *ra able, 

But if success I must never find. 
Then come misfortune, I bid thee welcome, 

I '11 meet thee with an undaunted mind.-^ 

The above was an extempore, under the pressure of 
a heavy train of misfortunes, which, indeed, threatened 
to undo me altogether. It was just at the close of that 
dreadful period mentioned page viii ;t and though the 
weather has brightened up a lit. le with me, yet there has 
always been since a tempest brewing round me in the 
grim sky of futurity, which I pretty plainly see will 
some time or other, perhaps ere long, overwhelm me, 
and^rive me into some doleful deil, to pine in sohta- 
ry, squalid wretchedness. — However, as I hope my 
poor country muse, who, all rustic, awkward, and un- 
polished as she is, has more charms for me than any 
otiier of the pleasures of life beside-r-as I hope she 
will not then desert me, I may even then, learn to be, 
if not happy, at least easy, and south a sang to sooth 
my misery. 

'Tv.-as at tlie same time I set about composing an 
air in the old Scotch stvle. — 1 am not musical sc!ioIar 



AlVadinri' to the inisfortunos he feci:n:;ly laments before 
s v-r5'\ (T//Vs /.? the mithor's fiote.') 

or iltc ori|T,v»^alM9, f?ee the remark, M2^rch, JflH, licfflu^ 
.r, ^' Th'^rn -una: a {:prt(ii7i prrzac^,^^ ^.«ff 



224 

enough to prick down my tune properly, so it can ne- 
ver see the light, and perhaps 'lis no great matter, but 
the following were the verses I composed to suit it : 

O raging fortune's withering blast 

Has laid my leaf full low ! O 
O raging fortune's withering blast 

Has laid my leaf full low ! O 
My stem was fair, my bud was green, 

My blossom sweet did blow ; O 
The dew fell fresh, the sun rose mild, 

And made my branches grow ; O 
But luckless fortune's northern storms 

Laid a' my blossoms low, O 
But luckless fortune's northern storms 

Laid a' my blossoms low, O. 

The tune consisted of three parts, so that the above 
verses just went through the whole air. 



October^ 1785. • 

If ever any young man, in the vestibule of the world, 
chance to throw his eyes over these pages, let him pay 
a warm attention to the following observations; as I 
assure him they are the fruit of a poor devil's dear- 
bought experience. — I have, literally, like that great 
poet and great gallant, and by consequence, that great 
fool, Solomon, — " turned my eyes to behold madness 
and folly." — Nay, I have, with all the ardor of a lively, 
fanciful, and whimsical imagination, accompanied with 
a warm, feeling, poetic heart — shaken hands with their 
intoxicating friendship. 

In the first place, let my pupil, as he tenders his 
own peace, keep up a regular, warm intercourse with 

the deitv ^ ^ % it ^ % ^ ^ 

* * (Here the MSS. abruptly close.) 



FRAGMENTS^ 
MISCELLANEOUS REMARKS, 



** Every single observation that is published by a man of 
g-enius, be it ever so trivial, should be esteemed of impor- 
tance; because he speaks from his own impressions : whereas 
common men publish common things, which they have per- 
haps gleaned from frivolous writers." 

Shenstone. 

I LIKE to have quotations for every occasion : 
-They give one's ideas so pat, and save one the trou- 
ble of finding expressions adequate to one's feelings. 
I think it is one of the greatest pleasures attending a 
poetic genius, that we can give our woes, cares, joys, 
loves, &:c. an embodied form in verse; which, to me, 
is ever immediate ease. Goldsmith says finely of his 
muse*-* 

" Thou source of all my bliss and all my woe ; 

*' That found'st me poor at first, and keep^st me so.'* 

What a Creature is niati 1 A ilttle alarm last nlglit, 
tuul to-dajr? tlUil i am mortal, hus made such i* revolu 
tion on my spirits ! There is no philosophy, no divini^ 
ty, that comes half so much home to the inind. I have 
no idea of courage that braves Heaven : 'Tis the wild 
ravings of an imaginary hero in Bedlam. 



My favorite feature in Milton's Satan is, his manly 
fortitude in supporting what cannot be remedied-*-in 
shortj the wild, broken fragments of a noble, exalted 



226 

mind in ruins. I meant no more by saying he was a fa- 
vorite hero of mine. 



I am just risen from a two-hours bout after supper, I 
with siiiy or sordid souls, who could relish nothing in 
conimon with me — but the port. " One." — 'Tis now 
'' witching time of night;" and whatever is out of joint 
in the foregoing scrawl, impute it to enchantments 
and spells; for 1 can't look over it, but will seal it 
up directly? as I don't care for to-morrow's criticisms 
on it. 



We ought, when we wish to be economists in hap- 
piness; we ought, in the first place, to fix the stand- 
ard of our own character ; and when, on full examina- 
tion, we know where we stand, and how much ground 
we occupy, let us contend for it as property; and 
those who seem to doubt, or deny us what is justly 
ours, let us either pity their prejudices, or despise 
their judgment. 

I know you will say this is self-conceit; but I call; 
it self-knowledge : the one is the overweening opinion 
of a fool, who fancies hiniself to be, what he wishes 
himself to be thought: the other is the honest justice 
that a man of sense, who has thoroughly examined 
the subject, owes to himself. Without this standard, 
this column, in our njind, we are perpetually at the 
mercy of the petulance, the mistakes, the prejudices, 
nay the very weakness and wickedness of our fellow- 
creatures. 

Away, then, with disquietudes ! Let us pray with 
the honest weaver of Kilbarchan, ''L — d send us a 
gude conceit o' oursel i" Or, in the words of the old 
sang ; 

*' Who does me disdain, I can scorn them again, 
" And 1 '11 never mind anv such foes." 



Your thoughts on religion shall be welcome. You 
may perhaps distrust me when I say 'tis also my fa- 



227 

vorite topic; but mine is the religion of the bosom. 
1 hate the very idea of a controversial divinity; as I 
firmly believe that every hoi>cst, upright nicin. of 
whatever sect, will be accepted of the deity. I despise 
the superstition of a fanatic, but I love tiie religion of 
a man. 



Why have I not heard from you ? To-day I well ex- 
pected it; and before supper, when a letter to me was 
announced, my heart danced with rapture: but be- 
hold ! 'twas some fool who had taken it i to his head 
to turn poet; and made an offering of the first huits 
of his nonsense. 



I believe there is no holding converse, or carrving 
on correspondence, with an amiable fine worn n, with- 
out some mixture of that delicious pasrion, whose 
most devoted slave I have more than once bad the 
honor of being: but why be hurt or offended or, tuat 
account?- Can no honest man have a prepossession for 
a fine woman, but he must run his head ag-inst uu in- 
trigue? Take a little of the tender witchcraft of love, 
and add to it the generous, the honorable sentimer-.ts 
of manly friendship; and 1 know but one r,.ore de- 
lightful morsel, which few, few in any rank ever 
taste. Such a compcsidon is like adding cream to 
strawberries — it not only gives the fruit a more ele- 
gant richness, but has a peculiar deliciousness of its 
own. 



Nothing astonishes me more, w^hen a little sickness 
clogs the wheel of life, than the thoughtless career we 
run in the hour of health. ^' None saith, where is God, 
*• my maker, that givelh me songs in the night: \\ho 
*' teacheth us more knowledge than the beasts of the 
^' field, and more understanding than the fowls of the 
" air." 



228 

I had a letter from my old friend a while ago, but it 
was so dry, so distant, so like a card to one of his cli- 
ents, that I could scarce bear to read it. He is a good, 
honest fellow; and can write a friendly letter, which 
would do equal honor to his head and his heart, as a 
w^hole sheaf of his letters 1 have by me will witness; 
and though Fame does not blow her trumpet at my ap- 
proach now^ as she did then^ when he first honored me 
with his friendship,* yet I am as proud as ever; and 
when 1 am laid in my grave, I wish to be stretched at 
my full length, that 1 may occupy every inch of ground 
which I have a right to. 



You would laugh, were you to see me where I am 
just now : — Here am I set, a solitary hermit, in the 
solitary room of a solitary inn, with a solitary bottle of 
wine by me — as grave and stupid as an owl — but like 
that owl, still faithful to my old song ; in confirmation 
of which, my dear * * * * here is your good 
health ! May the hand-wal'd bennisons o' heaven bless 
your bonie face ; and the wratch wha skellies at your 
weelfare, may the auld tinkler deil get him to clout 
his rotten heart ! Amen ! 



I mentioned to you my letter to Dr. Moore, giving 
an account of my life : it is truth, every word of it ; and 
will give you the just idea of a man whom you have 
honored with your friendship. 1 wish you to see me as 
I am, I am, as most people of my trade are, a strange 
Will 0* Wisp being, the victim, too frequently, of much 
imprudence and many follies. My great constituent 
elements are pride and passion. The first I have en- 
deavoured to humanize into integrity and honor; the 
last makes me a devotee to the warmest degree of en- 
thusiasm, in love, religion, or friendship; either of 
them, or altogether, as 1 happen to be inspired. 

* Alluding to the time of his first appearance in Edinburgh. 



229 

What trifling silliness is the childish fondness of the 
everyday children of the world ! 'Tis the unmeaning 
toying of the younglings of the fields and forests : but 
where sentiment and fancy unite their sweets; where 
taste and delicacy refine ; where wit adds the flavor, 
and good sense gives strength and spirit to all, what a 
delicious draught is the hour of tender endearment 1 — 
beauty and grace in the arms of truth and honor, in ail 
the luxury of mutual love ! ^ 

Innocence 



Looks gaily smiling on ; while rosy pleasure 
Hides young desire amid her flowery wn-eath, 
And pours her cup luxuriant; mantling high 
The sparkling heavenly vintage. Love and Bliss! 



Those of either sex, but particularly the female? 
who are lukewarm in the most important of all things, 
religion — ^' O my soul, come not thou into their se- 
" cret i" I will lay before you the outlines of my be- 
lief. He, who is our author and preserver, and will one 
day be our judge, must be, (not for his sake in the w^ay 
of duty, but from the native impulse of our hearts,) 
the object of our reverential awe, and grateful adora- 
tion : He is almighty and all-bounteous ; we are weak 
and dependent ; hence, prayer and every other sort of 

devotion. " He is not willing that any should pe- 

«' rish, but that all should come to everlasting life;" 
consequently it must be in every one's power to em- 
brace his ofl'er of " everlasting life;" otherwise he 
could not, in justice, condemn those who did not. A 
mind pervaded, actuated and governed by purity, truth 
and charity, though it does not 7?ie7i( heaven, yet is an 
absolutely necessary pre-requisite, without which hea- 
ven can neither be obtained nor enjoyed ; and, by divine 
promise, such a mind shall never fail of attaining 
*' everlasting life :" hence, the impure, the deceiving, 
and the uncharitable, exchidc themselves from eternal 
'^Uss. hv their unfiti^css for enjoying it. The Supr-ni? 



230 

Being has put the immediate administration of all this,, 
for wise and good ends known to himself, into the 
hands of Jesus Christ, a great personage, whose rela- 
tion to him we cannot comprehend ; but whose rela- 
tion to us is a Guide and Saviour ; and who, except 
for our own obstinacy and misconduct, will bring us 
all, through various ways, and by various means, to 
bliss at last. 

These are my tenets, my friend. My creed is pret- 
ty nearly expressed in the last clause of Jamie Dearths 
grace, an honest weaver in Ayrshire ; ^' Lord grant that 
*' we may lead a gude life 1 for a gude life maks a 
^' gude end, at least it helps weell" 



.4 Mother^s Address to her Infant,^ 

My blessins upon thy sweet, wee lippie ! 

My blessins upon thy bonie e'e brie ! 
Thy smiles are sae like my blythe sodger laddie, 

Thou 's ay the dearer and dearer to me ! 



I am an odd being: some yet unnamed feelings, * 
things, not principles, but better than whims, carry me 
fartlicr than boasted reason ever did a philosopher. 



There 's naethin like the honest nappy ! 
Whaur *11 ye e'er see men sae happy, 
Or women sonsie, saft an' sappy, 

'Tween morn an' morn, 
As them wha like to taste the drappie 

In glass or horn. 



* These tender lines were added by the Poet, to old wordiJ 
that he had collected, of a song called Bonie Dundee^ which 
appeared for the iii'st time in print in the Musical JMmeum, E 



231 

I \'e seen me daez't upon a time ; 
I scarce could wink or see a sty me ; 
Just ae hauf muchkin does me prime. 

Ought less is little. 
Then back I rattle on the rhyme 

As gleg's a whittle I 



Coarse minds are not aware how much they injttre 
the keenly-feeling tie of bosom friendship, when in 
their foolish officiousness, they mention what nobody 
cares for recollecting. People of nice sensibility, and 
generous minds, have a certain intrinsic dignity, thut 
fires at being trifled with, or lowered, or even tco 
nearly approached. 



Some days, some nights, nay some hours^ like the 
^< ten righteous persons in Sodom," save the rest of 
the vapid, tiresome, miserable months and years oi' 
life. 



To be feelingly alive to kindness and unkindness, is 
a charming female character. 



I have a little infirmity in my disposition, that 
where I fondly love or highly esteem, 1 cannot bear 
reproach. 



If I have robbed you of a friend, God forgive me : 
But be comforted : let us raise the tone of our feel- 
ings a little higher and bolder. A fellow-creature who 
leaves us, who spurns without just cause, though once 
our bosom friend — up with a little honest pride — let 
him go ! 



A decent means of livelihood in the world, an ap- 
proving God, a peaceful conscience, and one firm, 



232 

trusty friend; can any body that has these be said to 
be unhappy? 



The dignified and dignifying consciousness of an 
honest man, and the well grounded trust in approving 
heaven, are two most substantial sources of happiness, 



Give me, my Maker, to remember thee ! " Give me 
to feel another's woe ;" and continue with me that 
dear-lov'd friend that feels with mine! 



Your religious sentiments I revere. If you have on 
some suspicious evidence, from some lying oracle, 
learned that I despise or ridicule so sacredly impor- 
tant a matter as real religion, you have much miscon- 
strued your friend. " I am not mad most noble Fes- 
tus!" Have you ever met a perfect character? Do we 
not sometimes rather exchange faults than get rid of 
them? For instance; I am perhaps tired with and 
shocked at a life, too much the prey of giddy incon- 
sistencies and thoughtless follies ; by degrees I grow 
sober, prudent, and statedly pious, I say statedly^ be- 
cause the most unaffected devotion is not at all incon- 
sistent with my first character. — 1 join the world in 
congratulating myself on the happy change. But let 
me pry more narrow ly into this affair ; have I, at bot- 
tom, any thing of a secret pride in these endowments 
and emendations? have I nothing of a presbyterian 
sourness, a hypercritical severity, when I survey my 
less regular neighbours ? In a word, have I missed all 
those nameless and numberless modifications of indis- 
tinct selfishness, wbjch are so near our own eyes, that 
ye can scarce bring them within our sphere of vision, 
and which the known spotless cambric of our charac- 
ter hides from the ordinary observer? 



My definition of worth is short: truth and humani- 
ty respecting our fellow-creatures; reverence and hu 



233 

mility in the presence of that Being my Creator and 
Preserver, and who, 1 have every reason to believe, 
will one day be my Judge. The first part of my defi- 
nition is the creature of unbiassed instinct ; the last is 
the child of after reflection. Where I found these two 
essentials, I would gently note, and slightly mention, 
any attendant flaws — flaws, the marks, the consequen- 
ces of human nature. 



How wretched is the condition of one who is haunt- 
ed with conscious guilt, and trembling under the idea 
of dreaded vengeance ! and w^hat a placid calm, what 
a charming secret enjoyment it gives, to bosom the 
kind feelings of friendship and the fond throes of love! 
Out upon the tempest of anger, the acrimonious gall 
of fretful impatience, the sullen frost of lowering re- 
sentment, or the corroding poison of withered envy I 
They eat up the immortal part of man ! If they spent 
their fury only on the unfortunate objects of them, it 
would be something in their favor; but these misera- 
ble passions, like traitor Iscariot, betray their lord and 
master. 

Thou, Almighty Author of peace, and goodness, 
and love ! do thou give me the social heart that kind- 
ly tastes of every man's cup! is it a draught of joy ^— . 
warm and open my heart to share it with cordial, un- 
envying rejoicing! Is it the bitter potion of sorrow?—. 
melt my heart with sincerely sympathetic woe 1 Above 
all, do thou give me the manly mind, that resolutelj 
exemplifies, in life and manners, those sentiments 
which I would wish to be thought to possess! The 
friend of my soul— there may I never deviate from the 
firmest fidelity, and most active kindness ! there may 
the most sacred, inviolate honor, the most faithful, 
kindling constancy, ever watch and animate my every 
thought and imagination ! 

Did you ever meet with the following lines spoken 
of religion : 



234 

*> ^Tis this^ tny friend, that streaks our morning bright ; 

^' *Tis this^ that gilds the horror of our night ! 

-^ When wealth forsakes us, and when friends are 

few; 
^' When friends are faithless, or when foes pursue; 
^' 'Tis this thsft wards the blow, or stills the smart, 
« Disarms affliction, or repels its dart: 
" Within the breast bids purest raptures rise, 
'^^ Bids smiling conscience spread her cloudless skies." 

I met with these verses very early in life, and was 
so delighted with them, that I have them by me, co- 
pied at school. 



I have heard and read a good deal of philosophy, 
benevolence and greatness of soul;- and when rounded 
with the flourish of declamatory periods, or poured in 
the mellifluence of Parnassian measure, they have a 
tolerable eff'ect on a musical ear; but when all these 
high-sounding professions are compared with the very 
act and deed, as it is usually performed, \ do not think 
there is any thing in or belonging to human nature so 
baldly disproportionate. In fact, were it not for a very 
few of our kind, among whom an honored friend of 
mine, whom to you. Sir, I will not name, is a distin- 
guished instance, the very existence of magnanimity, 
generosity, and all their kindred virtues, would be as 
much a question with metaphysicians as the existence 
of witchcraft. 



There is no time when the conscious, thrilling chords 
of love and friendship give such delight, as in the pen- 
sive hours of what Thomson calls " Philosophic Me- 
lancholy .'' The family of misfortune, a numerous 
group of brothers and sisters! they need a resting 
place to their souls. Unnoticed, often condemned by 
the world; in some degree, perhaps condemned by 
themselves, they feel the full enjoyment of ardent 



235 

love, delicate tender endearments, mutual esteem, 
and mutual reUance. 

In this light I have often admired religion. In pro- 
portion as we are wrung with grief, or distracted with 
anxiety, the ideas of a compassionate Deity, an Al- 
mighty Protector, are doubly dear. 



I have been, this morning, taking a peep through, 
as Young finely says, "the dark postern of time long 
elapsed;" 'twas a rueful prospect! What a tissue of 
thoughtlessness, weakness, and folly ! My life remind- 
ed me of a ruined temple. What strength, what pro- 
portion in some parts ! what unsightly gaps, what pros- 
trate ruins in others! I kneeled down before the Father 
of Mercies, and said, *' Father, I have sinned against 
Heaven, and in thy sight am no more worthy to be 
called thy son." I rose, eased, and strengthened. 



LETTERS 
' FROM WILLIAM BURNS, 

AMD 

AN ACCOUNT OF HIS DEATH, 



LETTERS 

1 ROM WILLIAM BURNS TO THE POET. 



THE Editor coiiceived that it might not he uninte- 
resting to the admirers of Burns to peruse the following 
Letters^ selected from a greater number that have fallen 
into his hands. They are the genuine and artless fir oduc 
tions of his younger Brother^ William Burns, a young 
man^ nvho after having served an afipr entice ship to the 
trade of a Saddler^ took his road towards the Souths and 
having resided a short time at Ke%vcastle-upon'Tyne^ 
arrived in Eondori^ where he died of a putrid fever in 
:h.e year 1790. 

If the Reader supposes he shall meet in these Letters 
that vivacity of genius which the near relationship of 
the Writer to the Poet might lead him to expect^ he will 
he disappointed. They coritain indeed little more than 
the common transactions incident to the humble line of 

I l^fe of their author^ expressed in simple and unaffected 
language. But to those whose admiration and affection 
for the Poet extend to his relations and concerns^ they 
are not without their value. They demonstrate the kind 
and fraternal attachment of Burns., in a strong and 
amiable point of view ; they form an additional eulogy 
on the memory of the excellent Father^ who had give?i 
all his sons an education superior to their situation in 

, life., and assiduously iiiculcated upon them the best prin- 
cipdes of virtue and morality ; and they exhibit the pic- 
ture of a contented and uncontaminated youth^ who., as 
he would never have attempted the dangerous heights to 

' which the Poet aspired^ would never have experienced 

I those Jiangs of disappointment and remorse which iiic^s^ 

j mnthj agitated his boso?nj but would 

'^ Thro' the calm sequestered vale of life, 
Jiuve kept the noiseless tenor of his way," 



240 

No. I. 
To Mr. ROBERT BURNS, Ellisland. 

Longtown^ Feb, 15, 1789. 
DEAH SIR) 

AS I am now in a manner only entering into the 
world, 1 begin this our con^spondence, with a view of 
being a gainer by your advice, more than ever you can 
be by any thing I can write you of what I see, or what 
1 hear, in the course of my wanderings. I know not 
how it happened, but you were more shy of your coun- 
sel than I could have wished, the time I staid with 
you ; whether it was because you thought it would dis- 
gust me to have my faults freely told me while 1 was 
dependent on you ; or whetber it was because that 
you saw by my indolent disposition, your instructions 
would have no effect, I cannot determine ; but if it 
proceeded from any of the above causes, the reason of 
withholding your admonition is now done avv^ay, for I 
now stand on my own bottom, and that indolence, 
Avhich I am very conscious of, is something rubbed off, 
by being called to act in life whether I will or not; 
and my inexperience, which I daily feel, makes me 
wish for that advice which you are so able to give, 
and which I can only expect from you or Gilbert since 
the loss of the kindest and ablest of fathers. 

The morning after I went from the Isle, I left Dum- 
fries about five o'clock and came to Annan to break- ; 
last, and staid about an hour ; and I reached this place 
about two o'clock. I have got work here, and I intend 
to stay a month or six weeks, and then go forward, as 
I wish to be at York about the latter end of summer, 
where I propose to spend next winter, and go on for 
vondon in the spring. j 



241 

1 have the promise of seven shillings a week from 
Mr. Proctor while I stay here, and sixpence more if 
he succeeds himself, for he has only new begun trade 
here. I am to pay four shillings per week of board 
wages, so that my neat income here will be much the 
same as in Dumfries. 

The inclosed you will send to Gilbert with the first 
opportunity. Please send me the first Wednesday af- 
ter you receive this, by the Carlisle waggon, two of 
my coarse shirts, one of my best linen ones, my vel- 
veteen vest, and a neckcloth ; write to me along with 
them, and direct to me. Saddler, in Longtown, and 
they will not miscarry, for I am boarded in the wag- 
goner's house. You may either let them be given in- 
to the waggon, or send them to Coulthard and Gelle- 
bourn's shop and they will forward them. Pray write 
me often while I stay here. — I wish you would send 
me a letter, though never so small, every week, for 
they will be no expense to me and but little trouble to 
you. Please to give my best wishes to my sisier-in 
law, and believe me to be your aitectionate 

And obliged Brother, 

WILLIAM BURNS. 

P. S. The great coat you gave me at parting did 
me singular service the day I com.e here, and merits 
my hearty thanks. From what has been said the con- 
clusion is this ; that my hearty thanks and my best 
wishes are all that you and my sister must expect 
from 

W. B. 



242 
No. II. 

A'twcastle^ 2Wi Jav. 1790^. 



DEAR BROTHER, 



I WROTE you about six ^veeks ago, and have 
expected to bear from you every post since, but 1 sup- 
pose your excise business which you hinted at in your 
last, has prevented you from writing. By the bye, when 
and how iiave you got into the excise ; and what divi- 
sion have you got about Dumfries? These Cjuestions 
please to answer in your next, if more important mat- 
ter do not occur. But in the mean time let me have 
the letter to John Murdoch, which Gilbert wrote me 
y ju meant to send ; inclose it in your's to me and let 
me have them as soon as possible, for I intend to sail 
for London, in a fortnight, or three weeks at farthest. 

You promised me when 1 was intending to go to 
I^^dinburgh, to write me some instructions about be- 
liaviour in companies rather above my station, to which 
I might be eventually introduced. As I may be intro- 
duced into such conipanies at Murdoch's or on his ac- 
count when I goto London, I wish you would write mc 
some such instructions now : I never had more need of 
them, for having spent little of my time in company 
of any sort since I came to Newcastle, I have almost 
forgot the common civilities of life. To these instruc- 
tions pray add some of a moral kind, for though (either 
through the strength of early impressions, or the fri- 
gidity of my constitution) I have hitheito withstood 
the temptation to those vices, to which young fellows 
of my station and time of life are so much addicted, 
yet, I do not know if my virtue will be able to with- 
stand the more powerful temptations of the metropo- 
lis : yet, through God's assistance and your instruc- 
tions I hope to weather the storm. 

Give the compliments of the season and my love 
to my sisters, and all the rest of your family. Tell Gil- 



s 



243 

bert the first time you write liim that T an:i v/ell, and 
that I will write him either when I sail or when I ar- 
live at London. 

I am, 8cc. 

W. B. 



No. III. 

London^ 2\8t Marcli^ 1790. 

DEAR BROTHER, 

I HAVE been here three weeks come Tuesday, 
and would have written to you sooner but was not set- 
tled in a place of work. — We were ten days on our 
passage from Shields; the weather being calm I w^s 
not sick, except one day when it blew pretty hard. I 
got into work the Friday after I came to town ; I 
wrought there only eight days, their job being done. 
I got work again in a shop in the Strand, the next day 
after I left my former master. It is only a temporary 
pliice, but I expect to be settled soon in a shop to my 
mind, although it will be a harder task than I at first 
imagined, for there are such swarms of fresh hands 
just come from the country that the town is quite 
overstocked, and except one is a particular good work- 
man, (which you know I am not, nor I am afraid ever 
I will be) it is hard to get a place : However, I don't yet 
'despair to bring up my lee-way, and shall endeavour if 
possible to sail within three or four points of the wind. 
I The encouragement here is not what I expected, wa- 
iges being very low in proportion to the expense of 
I living, but yet, if I can only lay by the money that is 
i spent by otliers in my situation in dissipation and riot, 
,1 expect soon to return you the money 1 borrowed of 
]you and live comfortably besides. 



244 

In the mean time I \vish ^ou would send up all m\ 
best linen shirts to London, which you may easily do 
by sending them to some of your Edinburgh friends, 
to be shipped from Leilh. Some of them are too lit» 
tie ; don't send any but what are good, and I wish one 
of my sisters could find as much time as to trim my 
shirts at the breast, for there is no such thing to be 
seen here as a plain shirt, even for wearing, which is 
what I want these for. I mean to get one or two new- 
shirts here for Sundays, but T assure you that linen 
here is a very expensive article. I am going to write- 
to Gilbert to send me an Ayrshire cheese ; if he can 
.spare it he will send it to you, and you may send it 
with the shirts, but 1 expect to hear from you before 
that time. The clieese I could get here ; but I will 
have a pride in eating Ayrshire cheese in London, 
and the expense of sending it will be little, as you are 
sending the shirts any how. 

I write this by J- Stevenson, in his lodgings, while 
he is writing to Gilbert. He is well and hearty, which 
is a blessing to me as well as to him : We were at Co- 
vent Garden chapel this forenoon, to hear the Ca{f\ 
preach ; he is grown very fat, and is as boisterous as 
ever.* There is a whole colony of Kilmarnock people i 
here, so we don't want for acquaintance. 

Remember me to my sisters and all the family. I 
hhall give you all the observations I have made in 
London in my next, when I shall have seen more of 
it. 

I am. Dear Brother, yours, Sec. 

W. B. 



* Vide Poetical AddresB to The Calf. Dr. Curriers edition, vol 

iiij p. 68. 



245 

No. IV, 

From Mr. MURDOCH to the BARD, 

Giving an account of the death of his brother WilHam. 

Hart-'Street^ Bloomsbury' Square^ London^ 
Sefitember I4thy 1790. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, 

YOURS of the 1 6th of July, I received on the 
26th, in the afternoon, per favor of my friend Mr. 
Kennedy, and at the same time was informed that 
your brother was ill. Being engaged in business till 
late that evening, I set out next morning to see him, 
and had thought of three or four medical gentlemen 
of my acquaintance, to one or other of whom I might 
apply for advice, provided it should be necessary. But 
when I went to Mr. Barber's to my great astonish* 
ment and heart-felt grief, I found that my young friend 
had, on Saturday, bid an everlasting farewel to all sub- 
lunary things. — It was about a fortnight before that he 
had found me out, by Mr. Stevenson's accidentally 
calling at my shop to buy something. We had only 
one interview, and that was highly entertaining to me 
in several respects. He mentioned some instruction I 
had given him when very young, to which he said he 
owed, in a great measure, the philanthropy he posses- 
sed. — He also took notice of my exhorting you all, 
when I Avrote, about eight years ago, to the man who, 
of all mankind that I ever knew, stood highest in my 
esteem, *< not to let go your integrity." — You may 
easily conceive that such conversation was both pleas- 
ing and encouraging to me : I anticipated a deal of ra- 
tional happiness from future conversations.— Vain ar^ 

y2 



246 

our expectations and hopes. They are so almost al- 
ways — Perhaps, (nay, certainly,) for our good. Were 
it not for disappointed hopes we could hardly spend a 
thought on another state of existence, or be in any de- 
gree reconciled to the quitting of this. 

I know of no one source of consolation to those 
who have lost young relatives equal to thatof their be- 
ing of a good disposition, and of a promising charac- 
ter. 

yp ^ ^ ^ ^ ■<if 

Be assured, my dear friend, that I cordially sympa- 
thize with you all, and particularly with Mrs. Burns, 
who is undoubtedly one of the most tender and affec- 
tionate mothers that ever lived. Remember me to her 
in the most friendly manner, when you see her, or 
write. — Please present my best compliments to Mrs. 
R. Burns, and to your brother and sisters. — There is 
no occasion for me to exhort you to filial duty, and to 
use your united endeavours in rendering the evening 
©f life as comforiable as possible to a mother, who has 
dedicated so great a part of it in promoting your tem- 
poral and spiritual welfare. 

Your letter to Dr. Moore, I delivered at his house, 
and shall most likely know your opinion of Zeluco, 
the first time I meet with him. I wish and hope for a 
long letter. Be particular about your mother's health. 
I hope she is too much a Christian to be afflicted 
above measure, or to sorrow as those who have no 
hope. 

One of the most pleasing hopes I have is to visits 
you all ; but I am commonly disappointed in what I 
ijQLOSt ardently wish for. 

I am, 

Dear Sir, 

Yours sincerely, 

JOHN MURDOCH. 



POETRY. 



EPISTLES IN VERSE. 



TO J. LAPRAIK. 



Sejit, 1 3 thy 1785. 

GuiD speed an' furder to you Johny? 
Guid health, hale han's, an' weather bony ; 
Now when yc 're nickan down fu' cany 

The staff o' bread. 
May ye ne'er want a stoup o' brany 

To clear your head. 

May boreas never thresh your rigs, 
Nor kick your ricklcs aff their legs, 
Scndin' the stuff o'er muirs an* haggs 

Like drivin' wrack ; 
But may the tapmast grain that wags 

Come to the sack. 

I 'm bizzie too, an' skelpin' at it, 
But bitter, daudin showers hae wat it, 
Sae my auld stumpie pen I gat it 

Wi' muckle wark, 
An' took my jocteleg* an' whatt it, 

Like ony dark. 



* Jocteleg^-'Si knife. 



250 

It 's now twa month that I 'm your debtor, 
For your brav/, nameless, dateless letter, 
Abu sin' me for harsh ill nature 

On holy men, 
While deil a hair yoursel ye 're better, 

But mair profane. 

But let the kirk-folk ring their bells, 
Let 's sing about our noble sels ; 
We '11 cry nae jads frae heathen hills 

To help, or roose us, 
But browster wives* an' whiskie stills, 

They are the muses. 

Your friendship sir, I winna quat it. 

An' if ye mak' objections at it. 

Then han' in nieve some day we '11 knot it, 

An' witness take, 
An' when wi' Usquabae we 've wat it 

It winna break. 

But if the beast and branks be spar'd 
Till kye be gaun without the herd. 
An' a' the vittel in the yard, 

An' theckit right, 
I mean your ingle-side to guard 

Ae winter night. 

Then muse-in spirin' aqua-vit^ 

Shall make us bidth sae blythe an' witty, 

Till ye forget ye 're auld an' gatty, 

An' be as canty 
As ye were nine year less than thretty, 

Sweet ane an' twenty ! 



' Bro-wster ^mves — Alehouse wive?. 



251 

But stocks are cowpet* \vi' the blast. 
An' now the sinn keeks in the west. 
Then I maun rin amang the rest 

An' quat my chanter; 
Sae I subscribe mysel in haste, 

Your's, Rab the Ranter. t 



TO THE REV. J(3HN M'MATH, 

Inclosing' a Copy of Holy Willie's Prayer, which he had 
requested. 

Scjit. \7lh^ 1785, 

While at the stook the shearers cow'r 
To shun the bitter blaudin' shovv'r. 
Or in gulravagel rinnin scow'r 

To pass the time, 
To you I dedicate the hour 

In idle rhyme. 

My musie, tir'd wi' mony a sonnet 

On gown, an' ban', an' douse black bonnet. 

Is grown right eerie now she 's done it, 

Lest they should blame her^ 
An' rouse their holy thunder on it 

And anathem her. 



* Cowpet — Tumbled over. 

f Bab the Jianter — ^^It is very probable that the poet thus 
named liimself after tlie Border Piper, so spiritedly intro- 
duced in the popular song* of Maggie Lauder :^~- 

** For I 'm a piper to my trade, 

My name is Bab the Banter; 
The lasses loup as tliey were daft, 

When I blaw up my chanter." 

\ Gulravage — Ruiming in a confused, disorderly manner, 
like boys when leaving* sdiool. 



252 

i own 'twas rash, an* rather hardy, 
That I, a simple countra bardie, 
Shou'd* meddle wi' a pack sae sturdy, 

Wha, if they ken me. 
Can easy, wi' a single wordie, 

Louse h-ll upon me. 

But I gae mad at their grimaces. 
Their sighan, cantan, grace-prood faces. 
Their three-mile prayers, an' hauf-mile graces. 

Their raxan conscience, •'* 
Whaws g^feed, revenge, an' pride disgraces 

Waur nor their nonsense. 

There 's Gaun^* miska't waur than a beast, 
Wha has mair honor in his breast 
Than mony scores as guid 's the priest 

Wha sae abus't him. 
An' may a bard no crack his jest 

What way they 've use't hiii 

See him,t the poor man's friend in need. 
The gentleman in word an' deed. 
An' shall iiis fame an' honor bleed 

By worthless skellums, 
An' not a muse erect her head 

To cowe the blellums ? 

Pope, had I thy satire's darts 
To gie the rascals their deserts, 

1 'd rip their rotten, hollow hearts, 

An' tell alou4 
Their jugglin' hocus pocus arts |^ 

To cheat the crowd. 



* Gavin Hamilton, Esq. 

I The poet has introduced the two first lines of this stanza 
into the dedication of his works to Mi\ •Hamilton, 



253 

God knows, I 'm no the thing I shou'd be, 
Nor am 1 even the thing I cou'd he, 
But twenty times, I rather wou'd be 

An atheist clean, 
Than under gospel colors hid be 

Just for a screen. 

An honest man may like a glass, 
An honest man may like a glass, 
But mean revenge, an* malice fause 

He '11 still disdain. 
An' then cry zeal for gospel laws. 

Like some we ken. 

They take religion in their mouth ; 
They talk o' mercy, grace an' truth, 
For what? to gie their malice skouth 

On some puir wight. 
An' hunt him down, o'er right an' ruth. 

To run streight. 

All hail, religion ! maid divine ! 
Pardon a muse sae mean as mine, 
Who in her rough imperfect line 

Thus daurs to name thee ; 
To stigmatize false friends of thine 

Can ne'er defame thee. 

Tho' blotch't an* foul wi' mony a stain. 

An' far unworthy of thy train. 

With trembling voice I tune my strain 

To join with those. 
Who boldly dare thy cause maintain 

In spite of foes : 

In spite o' crowds, in spite o' mobs, 
In spite of undermining jobs. 
In spite o* dark banditti stabs 

At worth an' meritj 
By scoundrels, even wi' holy robes. 

But hellish spirit. 



254 

Q Ayr, my dear, my native ground, 
Wilhin thy presbytereal bound 
A candid lib'ral band is found 

Of public teachers, 
As men, as christians too renown'd 

~ An' manly preachers. 

Sir, in that circle you ar-e nam'd ; 

Sir, in that circle you are fam'd ; 

An' som^, by whom your doctrine 's blam'd, 

(Which gies you honor) 
Even Sir, by them your heart's esteem'd, 

An' winning manner » 

Pardon this freedom I have ta'en, - 
An' if impertinent I 've been, 
Impute it not, good Sir, in ane 

Whase heart ne'er wrang'd ye? 
But to his utmost would befriend 

Ought that belang'd ye. 



To GAVIN HAMILTON, Esq. Mauchline. 

(Recommending a Boy.) 

Alosgaville, May Sy 1786. 

I HOLD it, Sir, my bounden duty 

To warn you how that Master Tootie, 

Alias, Laird M'Gaun,* 
Was here to hire yon lad away 
'Bout whom ye spak the tither day^ 

An' wad hae don't aff han' : 



* Master Tootie then lived in Mauchline; a dealer in Cows, 
It was his common practice to cut the nicks or markings from 
the horns of cattle, to disguise their age.*--He was an artfij, 



255 

But lest he learn the callan tricks, 

As faith I muckle doubt him, 
Like scrapin' out auld Crummie's nickS) 
An' tellin' lies about them; 
As lieve then 1 'd have then, 

Your clerkship he should saifj 
If sae be, ye may be 

Not fitted otherwhere. "" 

Althoi. I say 't, he '& gleg enough. 

An' bout a house that's rude an' rough, 

^ The boy might learn to sivt'ars 

But then wi' tjou^ he '11 be sae taught. 
An' get sic fair example straught, 
I hae na ony fear. 
Ye 'II catechise him every quirk, 

^|A.n' shore hini weei wi* hell; 

An' gar him follow 1o the kirk 

•|— Ay when ye gang yourseL 
if ye then, maun be then 

Frae hame this comin Friday ^ 
Then please sir, to lea'e sir, 
The orders vvi' your lady. 

My word of honor I hae gien. 

In Paisley John's, that night at e'en. 

To meet the TVarld's rjorrn. 
To try to get the twa to gree, 
An' name the airles* an' the fee. 

In legal mode an' form : 
I ken he weel a Snick can draw. 

When simple bodies let him ; 
An' if a Devil be at a', 

In faith he 's sure to get him. 



trick-contriving character; hence he is called a Snick-tlraicer 
In the Poet's " Address to the Beil^^ he styles that aug-ust per 
sonage an auldy snick-draiving dog ! E. 

* The Airles — Earnest monev. 



25& 

To phrase you an' praise y©u, 
Ye ken yo.iir Lauieat scorns: 

The piw^yi^ still, you share still, 
Of grateful Minstrel Burns. 



To Mr. M'ADAM, of Craigen-Gillan, 

la answer to an obliging- letter he sent in the commence.- 
ment of my poetic career. 

Sir, o'er a gill I gat your card, 

1 trow it made me proud ; 
See wha taks notice o' the bard 1 

I lap and cry'd fu' loud. 

Now deil-ma-care about their jaw. 
The senseless, gawky million ; 

I '11 cock my nose aboon them a% 
I 'm roos'd by Craigen-Gillan ! 

Twas noble. Sir; 'twas like yoursel, 

To grant your high protection: 
A great man's smile ye ken fu' well, 
Is ay a blest infection. 

rho', by his* banes wha in a tub 

Match'd Macedonian Sandy I 
On my ain legs thro' dirt and dub, 
I independent stand ay. — 

And when those legs to gude, warm kailj 

Vv i' welcome canna bear me ; 
A lee dyke-side, a sybow-tail, 

A barley -scone shall cheer me. 



' Piogenes. 



257 

Heaven spare you lang to kiss the breath 

O' mony flow'ry simmers! 
And bless your bonie lasses baith, 

I 'm tald they 're loosome kimmers 1 

And God bless young Dunaskin's laird, 

The blossom of our gentry ! 
And may he wear an auld man's beard, 

A credit to his country. 



To CAPTAIN RIDDEL, Glenriddel. 
(Extempore Lines on retui-ning* a Newspaper.) 

FJlisland^ Monday Evening.. 

Your news and review, Sir, I 've read through and. 
through, Sir, 

With little admiring or blaming : 
The papers are barren of home-news or foreign, 

No murders or rapes worth the naming. 

Our friends the reviewers, those chippers and hewers. 

Are judges of mortar and stone, Sir ; 
But of meet^ or unmeet^ in ^fabrick complete^ 

I '11 boldy pronounce they are none, Sir. 

My goose-quill too rude is to tell all your goodnesr 

Bestowed on your servant, the Poet ; 
Would to God 1 had one like a beam of the sun. 

And then all the w^orld, Sir, should know il ' 



zi 



258 

To TERRAUGHTY,* 

On his Birth-Day. 

Health to the Maxwell's vet'ran Chief 1 
Heahh, ay unsour'd by care or grief: 
Inspir'd, I turn'd Fate's sybil leaf. 

This natal morn, 
I see thy life is stuff o' prief, 

Scarce quite half worn.— 

This day thou metes threescore eleven, 
And I can tell that bounteous Heaven 
(The second sight, ye ken, is given 

To ilka Poet,) 
On thee a tack o' seven times seven 

Will yet bestow it. 

If envious buckles view wi' sorrow 

rhy lengthen'd days on this blest morrow, 

May desolation's lang-teeth'd harrow. 

Nine miles an hour, 
Rake them, like Sodom and Gomorrah, 

In brunstane stoure— 

But for thy friends, and they are mony, 
Baith honest men and lasses bonie. 
May couthie fortune, kind and cannie, 

In social glee, 
Wi' mornings blythe and e'enings funny 

Bless them and thee ! 

Fareweel, auld birkie ! Lord be near ye. 
And then the Deil he daur na steer ye : 
Your friends ay love, your faes ay fear ye. 

For me, shame fa' me, 
If neist my heart I dinna wear ye 

While Burns they ca' me. 

* Mrc Maxwell^ of Terraughty, near Dumfries-? 



259 

To a LADY, 
With a present of a pair of Drinking" Glasses 

Fair Empress of the Poet's soul, 

And Queen of Poetesses ; 
Clarinda, take this little boon, 

This humble pair of glasses. — 

And fill them high with generous juice^ 

As generous as your mind; 
And pledge me in the generous toast— 

" The whole of h.rr.an kind T^ 

*< To those who Icr^ :.sl'' — second fill; 

But not to those whom we love ; 
Lest we love those w^ho love not us !-^— - 

A third—" to thee and me, love /" 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



TRAGIC FRAGMENT. 

IN my early years nothing less would serve me than 
courting the tragic Muse. — 1 was, I think, about eigh- 
teen or nineteen when 1 sketched the outlines of a tra- 
gedy forsooth ; but the bursting of a cloud of family 
misfortunes, which had for some time threatened us, 
prevented my farther progress. In those days I never 
wrote down any thing; except a speech or two, the 
whole has escaped my memory. — The following, 
which I most distinctly remember, was an exclama- 
tion from a great character : — great in occasional in- 
stances of generosity, and daring at times in villainies. 
He is supposed to meet with a child of misery, and 
exclaims to himself — 

" All devil as I am, a damned wretch, 

<' A harden'd, stubborn, unrepenting villain, 

*' Still my heart melts at human wretchedness; 

<* And with sincere tho' unavailing sighs, 

" I view the helpless children of distress. 

^' With tears indignant I behold th' oppressor 

*^ejoicing in the honest man's destruction, 

«' Whose un submitting heart was all his crime. 

" Even you, ye helpless crew» I pity you ; 

^' Ye, whom the seeming good think sin to pity: 

** Ye poor, despis'd, abandon'd vagabonds, 

" Whom vice, as usual, has turn'd o'er to ruiih 

— " O, but for kind, tho' ill-requited friends, 

<' I had been driven forth like you forlorn, 

^' The most detested, worthless v/ retch amonc, you !'^ 



261 



THE VOWELS— A Tale. 

^Twas where the birch and sounding thong arc 
ply'd, 
The noisy domicile of pedant pride ; 
Wi ere ignorance her darkening vapour throws. 
And cruelty directs the thicKcning blows; 
Upon a time, Sir Abece the great. 
In uil his pedagogic powers elate, 
His awful chair of state resolves to mount, 
And call the trembling vowels to account.— 

First enter'd A, grave, broad, solemn wight, 
But ah 1 deform'd, dishonest to the sight! 
His twisted head look'd backward on his way, 
And flagrant from the scourge he grunted, ai! 

Reluctant, E stalk'd in; with piteous race 
The justiing tears ran down his honest face! 
That name, that well-worn name, and all his own, 
Pale he surrenders at the tyrant's throne ! 
The pedant stifles keen the Roman sound 
Not ull his mongrel diphthongs can compound; 
And next the title following close behind. 
He to the nameless, ghastly wretch assigned. 

The cobweb'd gothic dome resounded, Y! 
In sullen vengeance, I, disdain'd reply : 
The pedant swung his felon cudgel round. 
And knock'd the groaning vowel to the ground i 

In rueful apprehension enter'd O, 
The wailing minstrel of despairing woe ; 
Th' Inquisitor of Spain the most expert. 
Might there have learnt new misteries of his art: 
So grim, deform'd, with horrors entering U, 
His dearest friend and brother scarcely knew ! 

As trembling U stood staring all aghast, 
The pedant in his left hand clutch'd him fast. 
In helpless infants' tears he dipp'd his right, 
Bpptiz'd him cw, and kick'd him from his sight* 



262 



The folloxvlng sketch seems to be one of a Series intended f6r a 
projected ivork^ under the title of *' The Poet's Progress." 
This character -was sent as a specimen^ accompanied by a letter 
to Professor Dug-ald Stewart, in -which it is thus noticed. " The 
fragment beginning, "A little, upright, pert, tart, &c." / 
** have not sherjn to cmy man living, '^tillnoxv I send it to you^ 
'' Tt forms the postulata, the axioms, the definition of a character, 
** -ivliich, if it appear at all, shall be placed in a variety of lights. 
** This particidar part I send you merely as a sample of my 
^* hand at portrait sketching.*^ 

SKETCH. 

A little, upright, pert, tart, trippling wight, 
And still his precious self his dear delight: 
Who loves his own smart shadow in the streetB, 
Better than e'er the fairest she he meets. 
A man of fashion too, he made his tour, 
Learn'd vive la bagatelle.^ et vive I' amour ; 
So traveli'd monkies their grimace improve, 
Polish their grin, nay sigh for ladies' love. 
Much specious lore but little understood; 
Fineering oft outshines the solid wood: 
His solid sense — by inches you must tell, 
But mete his cunning by the old Scots ell ; 
His meddling vanity a busy fiend, 
Still making work his selfish craft must imend. 



SCOTS PROLOGUE, 

For Mr, Sutherland's Benejit A^'ight^ Dumfries, 

What needs this din about the town o' Lon'on, 
How this new play an' that new sang is comin ? 
Why is outlandish stuff sae meikle courted ? 
Does nonsense mend like whisky, when imported ? 
Is there nae poet, burning keen for fame. 
Will try to gie us sangs and plays at hame ? 
For comedy abroad he need na toil, 
A fool and knave are plants of every soil ; 



263 

Nor need he hunt as far as Rome and Greece 
To gather matter for a serious piece ; 
There 's themes enough in Caledonian story, 
Would shew the tragic muse in a' her glory. — 

Is there no daring bard will rise, and tell 
How glorious Wallace stood, how hapless,' fell ? 
Where are the muses fled that could produce 
A drama worthy o^ the name o' Bruce ; 
How here, even here, he first unsheath'd the sword 
'Gainst mighty England and her guilty lord ; 
And after mony a bloody, deathless doing, 
Wrench'd his dear country from the jaws of ruin ? 
O for a Shakspeare or an Otway scene, 
To draw the lovely, hcipiess Scottish Queen ! 
Vi-iin all the omnipotence of female charms 
'Gc^inst headlong, ruthless, mad Rebellion's arms. 
She fell, but fell vvilh spirit truly Roman, 
To glut the vengeance of a rivai woman : 
A woman, tho' the phrase may seem uncivil, 
As able and as cruei as tne Devil ! 
One Douglas lives in Home's immortal page, 
But Douglases were heroes every age : 
And tho' your fathers, prodigal of life, 
A Douglas followed to the martial strife. 
Perhaps if Jbowls row right, and Right succeeds.] 
Ye yet may follov/ where a Douglas leads! 

As ye hae generous done, if a' the land 
Would take the muses' servants by the hand; 
Not only here, but patronize, befriend them. 
And where ye justly can commend, commend them j 
And aiblins when they winna stand the test, 
Wink hard and say, the folks hae done their best ! 
Would a' the land do this, then 1 'II be caution 
Ye '11 soon hae poets o' the Scottish nation, 
Will gar flame blaw until her trumpet cidck. 
And warsle time an' lay him on his back ! 

For us and for our stage should ony spier, 
'^ Whose ajight thae chieis maks a' this bustle here ?" 



264 

My best leg foremost, I *11 set up my brow, 

We have the honor to belong to you ! 

We 're your ain bairns, e'en guide us as ye like, 

But like good mithers, sTiore before ye strike. — 

And gratefu' still 1 hope ye *11 ever find us, 

For a' the patronage and meikle kindness 

We 've got frae a' professions, setts and ranks : 

God help us ! we 're but poor — ye'se get but thanks. 



AN EXTEMPORANEOUS EFFUSION. 

On being appointed to the Excise. 

Searching auld wives barrels 

Och, ho! the day! 
That clarty barm should stain my laurels; 

Bui — what '1 ve say! 
These muvin' things ca'd wives and wean^ 
Wad muve the very hearts o' stanes ! 



TO THE OWI^-By John M^Creddie.* 

Sad bird of night, what sorrow calls thee forth. 
To vent thy plaints thus in the midnight hour? 

Is it some blast that gathers in the north, 

Threat'ning to nip the verduie of thy bow'r? 



* Bvirns sometimes wrote poems in the old ballad style, 
which for reasons best known to hhnself, he g-aveto the world 
is songs of the olden time. That famous soldier's song in paili- 
cular, first printed in a letter to Mrs. Dunlop, Dr. Curriers ed. 
rjol ii. No. LX, beginning 

Go fetch to me a pint o' wine. 

An' fill it in a silver tassie; 
That I may drink before I g"o, 

A service to my bonie lassie; 

has been pronounced by some of our best living poets an iu" 
imtable relique of some ancient J^Rnstrel! Yet I have discover- 



265 

Is it, sad owl, that autumn strips the shade, 
And leaves thee here, unshelter'd and forlorn? 

Or fear that winter will thy nest invade ? 

Or friendless melancholy bids thee mourn ? 

Shut out, lone bird, from all the feather'd train. 
To tell thy sorrows to th' unheeding gloom ; 

No friend to pity when thou dost complain, 
Grief all thy thought, and solitude thy home. 

Sing on, sad mourner ! I will bless thy strain. 
And pleas'd in sorrow listen to thy song: 

Sing on, sad mourner ! to the night complain, 
While the lone echo wafts thy notes along. 

Is beauty less, when down the glowing cheek 
Sad, piteous tears in native sorrows fall ? 

Less kind the heart when anguish bids it break? 
Less happy he who lists to pity's call ? 

Ah no, sad owl ! nor is thy voice less sweet. 
That sadness tunes it, and that grief is there ; 

That spring's gay notes, unskill'd, thou canst repeat , 
That sorrow bids thee to the gloom repair : 



ed it to be the actual production o^ Burns himself. The ballad 
of Auld lang syne was also introduced in this ambiguous man- 
ner, though there exist proofs that the two best stanzas of it 
are indisputably his ; hence there arc strong grounds for be- 
lieving this poem also to be his production, notwithstanding 
the evidence to the contrary. It was found among his JllSS. in 
his oivn hand ivriting y toith occasional interline at ions, such as occur 
in all his primitive effusions. It is worthy of his muse; but it is 
more in the style of Gray or Collins. 

Should there however, be a real author of the name o? John 
j\PCreddie, he will not be displeased at tlie publication of his 
poem, when he recollects that it had obtained the notice of 
Burns, and had undergone his correction. E. 

A a 



266 

Nor that the treble songsters of the day, 

Are quite estranged, sad bird of night ! from thr; 

Nor that the thrush deserts the evening spray, ^ 
When darkness calls thee from thy reverie.— 

From some old tow*r, thy melancholy dome, 
While the gray walls and desert solitudes 

Return each note, responsive to the gloom 
Of ivied coverts and surrounding woods; 

There hooting ; I will list more pleas'd to thee, 

Than ever lover to the nightingale ; 
Or drooping wretch, oppress'd with misery, 

Lending his ear to some condoling tale. 



ON SEEING THE BEAUTIFUL SEAT OF LORD G. 

What dost thou in that mansion fair ? 

Flit G and find 

Some narrow, dirty, dungeon cave, 

The picture of thy mind ! 



ON THE SAME. 



No Stewart art thou G- 



The Stewarts all were brave ; 
Besides the Stewarts were but fooh^ 
Not one of them a knave. 



ON THE SAME. 



Bright ran thy line O, G ~ 

Thro' many a far-fam'd sire I 

So ran the far-fam'd Roman way^ - 
So ended in a mire. 



267 

TO THE SAME, 

On the Author being threatened with his resentment. 

Spare me thy vengeance, G 

In quiet let me live: 
I ask no kindness at thy hand. 

For thou hast none to give. 



,THE DEAN OF FACULTY. 

A NEW BALLAD. 

Tune — The Dragon of Wantley. 

Dire was the hate at old Harlaw, 

That Scot to Scot did carry ; 
And dire the discord Langside saw, 

For beauteous, hapless Mary : 
But Scot with Scot ne'er met so hot, 

Or were more in fury seen, Sir, 
Than 'twixt Hal and Bod for the famous job- 

Who should be Faculty^ s Dean^ Sir. — 

This Hal for genius, wit, and lore. 

Among the first was number'd; 
But pious Bob^ 'mid learning's store. 

Commandment tenth remember'd.—- 
Yet simple Bob the victory got. 

And wan his heart's desire ; 
Which shews that heaven can boil the pot, 

Though the devil p — s in the lire. — 

Squire Hal besides had in this case 

Pretensions rather brassy. 
For talents to deserve a place 

Arc qualifications saucy ; 
So their worships of the Faculty, 

Quite sick of merit's rudeness, 
Chose one who should owe it all d' ye see, 

To their gratis grace and goodness.— 



268 

As once on Pisgah purg'd was the sight 

Of a son of Circumcision, 
So may be> on this Pisgah height, 

Bob's purblind mental vision : 
Nay, Bobby\^ mouth may be open'd yet 

Till for eloquence you hail him, 
And swear he has the Angel met 

That met the Ass of Balaam. — 



EXTEMPORi! IN THE COURT OF SESSION 
Tune — Gillicrankie. 
LORD A TE. 

He clench'd his pamphlets in his fist. 

He quoted and he hinted, 
Till in a declamation-mist, 

His argument he tint* it: 
He gaped for 't, he gaped for % 

He fand it was awa, man ; 
But what his common sense came short; 

He eked out wi' law, man. 

Mr. ER— NE. 

Collected Harry stood awee. 

Then open'd out his arm, man ; 
His lordship sat wi' ruefu' e'e. 

And ey'd the gathering storm, man ; 
Like wind-driv'n hail it did assail, 

Or torrents owre a lin, man ; 
The Bench sae wise lift up their eyes, 

Half.wauken'd wi' the din, man. 



* Tm^— lost. 



269 



VERSES TO J. RAN KEN, 

{The person to -whom his Poem on shooting the partridge is 
addressed, ivhile Ranken occupied the farm of Ada^nhill, 
in Ayrshire,) 

Ae day, as Death, that grusome carl, 
Was driving to the tither warl' 
A mixtie-maxtie motley squad, 
And iiiony a gilt-bespotted lad; 
Black gowns of each denomination. 
And thieves of every rank and station, 
From him that wears the star and garter, 
To him that wintles* in a halter: 
Asham'd himsel to see the wretches, 
He mutters, glow'rin at the bitches, 
'' By G-d I '11 not be seen behint them, 
<* Nor 'mang the sp' ritual core present them. 
^^ Without, at least ae honest man, 

u To grace this d d infernal clan." 

By Adam hill a glance he threw, 
a L — d God ! (quoth he) I have it now, 
*' There 's just the man I want, i' faith,'' 
And quickly stoppit Ranken' s breath. t 



* The word Wintle, denotes sudden and involuntary mo- 
tion. In the ludicrous sense in which it is here applied, it niav 
be admirably translated by the vulgar London expression of 
Dancing upon 7iothing. 

■\ The first thought of this poem seems to have been sug- 
gested by FalstaffU account of his ragged recruits passing- 
through Coventry. 

^* I '11 not march through Coventry with them, that 's flat '." 
Aa2 



270 

^n heari7ig that there tvas Falsehood in tlit 
Rev, Dr. B^ 's very looks. 

That there is falsehood in his looks 

I must and will deny : 
They say their master is a knave— 

And sure they do not lie. 



^n a Schoolmaster in Cleish Parish^ Fife shir c . 

Here lie Willie M — hie*s banes, 

O Satan, when ye tak him, 
Gie him the schuiin of your weans; 

For clever Deils he '11 mak 'emi 



ADDRESS TO GENERAL DUMOURIER 

(A Parody on Robin Adair.) 

You *re welcome to Despots. Dumourier ; 

You 're welcome to Despots, Dumourier. — 

How does Dampiere do ? 

Aye, and Rournonville too? 

Why did they not come along with you, Dumouriei? J 

I will fight France with you, Dumourier,— 

1 will fight France with you, Dumourier:— 

1 will fight France with you, 

I will take my chance with you ; 

By my soul 1 '11 dance a dance with you, Dumouri^j. 



271 

Then let us fij^ht about, Dumourier; 

Then let us fight i\bout, Dumourier; 

Then let us fight about, 

'Till fieedom's spark is out, 

Then we '11 be d-mned no doubt — Dumourier.* 



ELEGY 

If- 

0N THE YEAR 1788. 

A SKETCH. 

For lords or kings I dinna mourn, 
E'en let them die — for that they 're born ; 
But oh! prodigious to reflec'! 
A Toivjnont^^ Sirs, is gane to wreck ! 
O Eighty-eighty in thy sma' space 
What dire events ha'e taken place 1 
Of what enjoyments thou hast reft us I 
In what a pickle thou hast left us 1 

The Spanish empire's tint a head. 
An' my auld teethless Bawtie's dead ; 
The tulzie's sair, 'tween Pitt an' Fox, 
And 'tween our Maggie's twa wee cocks; 
The tane is game, a bluidie devil. 
But to the hen-birds unco civil; 
The tither 's something dour o' treadin, 
But better stuff ne'er claw'd a midden — 



* It is almost needless to observe that the song- of Jiobip 
Adair, begins thus : — 

You 're welcome to Paxton, Robin Adair; 

You *re welcome to Paxton, Robin Adair.— 

How does Johnny Mackerell do? 

Aye, and Luke Gardener too? 

AVhy did they not come along with you, Robin Adair f 

f' A Toxvmont^^K Twelvemonth. 



272 

Ye ministers, come mount the poupit, 
An' cry till ye be haerse an' roupet, 
For Eighty-eight he vvish'd you weel, 
An' gied you a' baith gear an' meal ; 
E'en mony a plack, and mony a peck, 
Ye ken yoursels, for little feck! — 

Ye bonie lasses, dight your e'en, 
For some o' you ha'e tint a frien'; 
In Eighty-eighty ye ken, was ta'en 
What ye '11 ne'er ha'e to gie again. 

Observe the very nowt an' sheep, 
How dowf and daviely they creep; 
Nay, even the yi'rth itsel 'does cry. 
For E'nbrugh wells are grutten dry. 

O Eighty -nine ^ thou 's but a bairn, 
An' no o'er auld, I hope, to learn 1 
Thou beardless boy, I pray tak care, 
Thou now has got thy Daddy's chair, 
Nae hand-cuff'd mizl'd, hap-shackl'd Regent^ 
But, like himsel, a full free agent. 
Be sure ye follow out the plan -^ 

Nae waur than he did, honest man! V 

As muckle better as you can. J 

■January l^ 1789. 



273 



VERSES, 

Written under the portrait of Fer^iisson, the poet, in a copy of 
that author's -works presented to a young Lady in Edinburgh^ 
March 19th, 1787. 

Curse on ungrateful man, that can be pleas'd. 
And yet can starve the author of the pleasure. 
O thou my elder brother in misfortune. 
By far my elder brother in the muses, 
With tears I pity thy unhappy fate ! 
Why is the bard unpitied by the world, 
Yet has so keen a relish of its pleasures?* 



* This apostrophe to Fergusson, bears a striking affinity to 
one in Burns's poems, Br. Currie's edition, vol. Ill, p. 248. 

O Fergusson! thy glorious parts 

111 suited law's dry musty arts ! 

My curse upon your whunstane hearts, 

Ye E^nbriigh gentry / 
The tythe o' what ye waste at Cartes 

Wad stow'd his pantry! 

This was written before Burns visited the Scottish capital- 
Even without a poet's susceptibility we may feel how the pro- 
phetic parallel of Fergusson's case with his own must have 
pressed on the memory of our bard, when he paid his second 
tribute of affection to his elder brother in misfortune. 

E. 



SONGS AND BALLADS, 



SONGS, he. 



EVAN BANKS. 

Slow spreads the gloom my soul desires^ 
The sun from India's shore retires ; 
To Evan Banks, with temp'rate ray, 
Home of my youth, he leads the day. 
Oh banks to me forever dear ! 
Oh streams whose murmurs still I hear I 
All, all my hopes of bliss reside 
Where Evan mingles with the Clyde. 

And she, in simple beauty drest, 
Whose image lives w^ithin my breast; 
Who trembling heard my parting sigh. 
And long pursued me with her eye ; 
Does she, with heart unchang'd as mine, 
Oft in the vocal bowers recline ? 
Or where yon grot o'erhangs the tide, 
Muse while the Evan seeks the Clyde? 

Ye lofty banks that Evan bound ! 

Ye lavish woods that wave around, 

And o'er the stream your shadows throw. 

Which sweetly winds so far below; 

What secret charm to mem'ry brings, 

All that on Evan's border springs; 

Sweet banks ! ye bloom by Mary's side : 

Blest stream ! she views thee haste to Clyde.- 

Can all the wealth of India's coast 
Atone for years in absence lost ? 
Return, ye moments of delight, 
With richer treasures bless my sight I 

Bb 



278 

Swift from this desert let me part, 
And fly to meet a kindred heiirt 1 
Nor more may ought my steps divide 
Prom that dear stream wbich flows to Clyde.- 



SONG. 



Ae fond kiss, and then we sever ; 
Ae fareweel, alas, for ever 1 
Deep in heart-wrung tears 1 Ml pledge thee. 
Warring sighs and groans I Ml wage thee. 
Who shall say that fortune grieves him 
While the star of hope she leaves him? 
Me, nae cheeifu' twinkle lights me; 
Dark despair around benights me. 

I '11 ne'er blame my partial fancy, 
Naething could resist my Nancy : 
But to see her, was to love her; 
Love but her, and love for ever. 
Had we never lov'd sae kindly, 
Had we never lov'd sae blindly, 
Never met — or never parted, 
We had ne'er been broken-hearted. 

Fare thee weel, thou first and fairest! 
Fare thee weel, thou best and dearest ! 
Thine be ilka joy and treasure. 
Peace, enjoyment, love, and pleasure ! 
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever ; 
Ae fare weel, alas, for ever! 
Deep in heart-wrung tears I '11 pledge thee, 
Warring sighs and groans I '11 v/age thee. 



279 
SONG. 

'pBiriOiio^imfiiished. 

Here 's a health to them that 's awa. 

Here 's a health to them that 's awa ; 

And wha winna wish gudc luck to our cause, 

M.y never gude luck be th^ir fa'!* 

It 's gude to be merry and wise, 

It 's gude to be honest and true, 

It 's gude to support Caledonia's cause, 

And bide by the buff and the blue. 

Here 's a health to them that 's awa. 

Here 's a health to them that 's awa; 

Here 's a health to Charlie, the chief a' the clan. 

Altho' that his band be sma'. 

May liberty meet wi' success ! 

May prudence protect her frae evil I 

May tyrants and tyranny tine in the mist. 

And wander their way to the devil ! 

Here's a health to them that 's awa. 

Here 's a health to them that 's awa. 

Here 's a health to Tammie, the Norland laddie, 

That lives at the lug o' the law i 

Here 's freedom to him, that wad read. 

Here 's freedom to him, that wad write ! 

There 's nane ever fear'd that the truth should be 

heard, 
But they wham the truth wad indite. 

Here 's a health to them that 's awa. 

Here 's a health to them that 's awa, 

Here 's Chieftain M'L'eod, a Chieftain wortli gowd, 

Tho' bred amang mountains o' snaw ! 

* * * * 



* Fa'-Ao\. 



280 



SONG. 



Now bank an' brae are claith'd in greeii. 

Aii' scatter'd cowslips sweetly spring*, 
By Girvan's fairy haunted stream 

The birdies flit on wanton wing. 
To Cassillis' banks when e'ening fa's, 

There wi' my Mary let me flee, 
There catch her ilka glance of love 

The bonie blink o' Mary's e'e! 

The child wha boasts o' warld's waltb? 

Is aften laird o' meiklecare; 
But Mary she is a' my ain. 

Ah, fortune canna gie me mair! 
Then let me range by Cassillis' banks, 

Wi' her the lassie dear to me. 
And catch her ilka glance o' love, 

The bonie blink o' Mary's e'e ! 



FHE BONIE LAD THAT 'S FAR AWA 

O HOW can I be blythe and glad. 
Or how can I gang brisk and braw, 

When the bonie lad that I lo'e best 
Is o'er the hills and far awa ? 

Its no the frosty winter wind. 

Its no the driving drift and snaw j 

But ay the tear comes in my e'e. 
To think on him that 's far awa. 

My father pat me frae his door, 

My friends they hae disown'd me a'. 

But I hae ane will tak my part. 
The bonie lad that 's far awa. 



281 

A pair o' gloves he gave to me, 

And silken snoods* he gave me twa ; 

And I will wear them for his sake, 
The bonie lad that 's far awa. 

The weary winter soon will pass, 

And spring will deed the birken-shaw ; 

And my sweet babie will be born, 

And he '11 come hame that 's far awa.f 



SONG4 

Out over the Forth I look to the north, 

But what is the north and its Highlands to me 

The south nor the east gic ease to my breast. 
The far foreign land, or the wild rolling sea. 

But I look to the west, v. hen I gae to rest, 

That happy my dreams and my slumbers may be 3 

For far in the west lives he I lo'e best, 
The lad that is dear to mv babie and me. 



^ Ribbands for binding the hair. 

f 1 have heard the country girls, in the Merse and Tevioi- 
dale, sing a song, the first stanza tjf which greatly resemble 
the opening of this. 

O how call I be blythe or glad, 

Or in my mind contented be. 
When he 's far aif that I love best. 

And banish'd frae my company 



F Of this exquisite ballad tlie last verse only is })rinted in 

^'■"*"''^' '■■'■fri — He did not know ^'-* *^'- -^^^'un^' stanza 



282 



LINES ON A PLOUGHMAN. 

As I was a wand' ring ae morning in spring, 
I lieard a young Ploughman sac sweetly to sing. 
And as he was sin gin' thir words he did say. 
There 's nae life like the Ploughman in the month o' 

sweet May. — 
The lav' rock in the morning she '11 rise frae her nest, 
And mount to the air wi' the dew on her breast,* 
And wi' the merry Ploughman she '11 whistle and sing, 
And at night she '11 return to her nest back again. 



1 'LL AY CA' IN BY YON TOWN. 

I '11 ay ca' in by yon town, 

And by yon garden green, again ; 
I '11 ay ca' in by yon town, 

And see my bonie Jean again. 

There 's nane sail ken, there 's nane sail guess^ 
What brings me back the gate again, 

But she my fairest faithfu' lass. 

And stownlin'sl we sail meet again. 

* It is pleasing" to mark those touches of sympathy which 
shew the sons of genius to be of one kindred. — In the following 
passage from the poem of his countryman, the same figure is 
illustrated with characterisfic simplicity; and never were the 
lender and the sublime of poetry more happily united, nor a 
more affectionate tribute paid to the memory of Burns. 

-" Thou, simple bird, 

** Of all the vocal quire, dwell' st in a home 
'* The humblest; yet thy morning song ascends 
" Neatest to Heaven; — sweet emblem of his song,f 
** Who sung thee wakening by the daivSy's side ! 

Gr ahame's JBivda of Scotland, vol. ii, p. iv* 

A StQ'::^ii!.lnt>--^y sleulth. 

- Eurtisv 



283 

She *ll wander by the alken tree, 

When trystin-tinae* draws near again ^ 

And when her lovely form I see, 
O haith, she 's doubly dear again ! 



WHISTLE O'ER THE LAVE O'T. 

First when Maggy was my care, 
Heaven, I thought, was in her air; 
Now we 're married — spier nae mair — 

Whistle o'er the lave o't.- 
Meg was meek, and Meg was mild, 
Bonie Meg was nature's child — 
— Wiser men than me 's beguil'd; 

AVhistle o'er the lave o't. 

How we live, my Meg and me, 
How we love and how we 'gree, 
I care na by how few may see ; 

Whistle o'er the lave o't.- 
Wha I wish were maggot's meat, 
Dish'd up in her winding sheet, 
! could write — but Meg maun see 't — 

Whistle o'er the lave o't.- 



YOUNG JOCKEY. 

Young Jockey was the biythest lad 
In a' our town or here awa; 

Fu' blythe he whistled at the gaud,* 
Fu' Uo'htlv danc'd he in the ha'! 



* Trtistin-time — The time of a])pohilii:ent. 
t The Gaud—ii^iihii Ploui^h. 



284 

He roos cl my e'en sae bonie blue, 
He roos'd my waist sae genty sma ; 

An' ay my heart came to my mou. 
When ne'er a body heard or saw. 

My Jockey toils upon the plain, 

Thro' wind and weet, thro' frost and snaw ', 
And o'er the lee 1 leuk fu' fain 

When Jockey's owsen hameward ca'. 
An' ay the nip^ht comes round again, 

When in his arms he taks me a' ; 
An' ay he vows he '11 be my ain 

As lang 's he has breath to draw^ 



MCPHERSON'S FAREWEL. 

Farewel ye dungeons dark and strong, 

The wretch's destinie 1 
M'Pherson's time will not be long, 

On yonder gallows tree. 

Sae raniingly^ sae wanionlijy 

Sue dauntingly gaed he ; 
He played a sfiring and danced it rounds 

Below the gallows tree. 

Oh, what is death but parting breath ? — > 

On mony a bloody plain 
i 've dar'd his face, and in this place 

I scorn him yet again ! 

Sae rantingly^ hS'c, 

Untie these bands from off my hands,* 

And bring to me my sword ; 
And there 's no a man in ail Scotland, 

But 1 '11 brave him at a word. 
Sae r anting ly^ ^c. 



* See the 2d verse of the ballad of Hughie Graham, p. 180. 



285 

1 've liv'd a life of start and strife ^ 

I die by treacherie : 
It burns my heurt I must depart 

And not avenged be. 

Sae rantingly^ <Jfc, 

Now farewel light, thou sunshine bright^ 

And all beneath the sky ! 
May coAvard shame distain his name. 

The wretch that dares not die ! 
Sae rantinglyy is'c. 



SONG. 



Here 's, a bottle and an honest friend! 

What wad ye wish for mair, man? 
Wha kens, before his life may end, 

What his share may be of care, man. 
Then catch the moments as they fly, 

And use them as ye ought, man :— 
Believe me, happiness is shy. 

And comes not ay when sought, man, 



SONG. 

Tune — Braes o' Balquhidder, 

/ kiss thee yetj yet^ 

An^ I ^11 kiss thee (jer agairiy 
Aii^ I 'II kiss thee yet^ yet^ 

My bonie Peggy Alison I 

Ilk care and fear, when thou art near, 
I ever mair defy them, O ; 

Young kings upon their hansel throne 
Are no sue blest as I am, O ! 

/ 7/ kiss thcr^ is'e. 



286 

When in my arms, wi' a' thy charms, 
1 cl isp my countless treasure- O ; 

I seek nae mair o' Heaven to share, 
Than sic a moment's pleasure, O I 
/ 7/ kiss thee^ Isfc. 

And by thy e'en sae bonie blue, 
1 swear I 'm thine for even O ! — 

Anu en ihy lips I seal my vow, 
And break it shall I never, O ! 

/ 7/ kiss thet^ kfc 



SONG.* 

Tune — If he be a Butcher neat and trim. 

On Cessnock banks there lives a lass. 
Could 1 describe her shape and mien ; 

The graces of her weelfar'd face, 

And the glancin' of her sp.trklin' e'en. 

She 's fresher than the morning davi^n 
When rising Phoebus first is seen. 

When dewdrops twinkle o'er the lawn ; 
An' she 's twa glancin' sparklin' e'en. 

She 's stately like yon youthful ash, 

That grows the cowslip braes between. 

And shoots its headctbove each bush; 
An' she 's twa glancin' sparklin' e'en. 

She 's spotless as the flow'ring thorn 

With fiow'rs so white and leaves so green, 

When purest in the dewy morn ; 

An' she 's twa glancin' sparklin' e'en. 



* This song was an eaily production. It was recovered by 
the Editor from the oral communication of a lady residing- at 
Glasgow, whom the Bard in early life affectionately admired 



287 

Her looks arc like the sportive lamb, 

When flow'ry May adorns the scene, 
rhat wantons round its bleating dam ; 
An' she 's twa glancin' sparkiin' e'en. 

Her hair is like the curling mist 

That shades the mountain side at e'en, 

When flow'r-reviving rains are past; 
An' she 's twa glancin' sparkiin' e'en. 

Her forehead 's like the show'ry bow, 
When shining sunbeams intervene 

And gild the distant mountains brow ; 
An' she 's twa glancin' sparkiin' e'en. 

Her voice is like the ev'ning thrush 
That sings in Cessnock banks unseen, 

While his mate sits nestling in the bush ; 
An' she 's twa glancin' sparkiin, e'en. 

Tier lips are like the cherries ripe. 

That sunny walls from boreas screen. 

They tempt the taste and cnarm the sight; 

An' she 's twa glancin' sparkiin' e'en. 

Her teeth are like a flock of sheep, 
With fleeces newly washen clean, 

That slowly mount the rising steep; 
An' she 's twa glancin' sparkiin' e'en. 

Her breath is like the fragrant breeze 
That gently stirs the blossom'd bean, 

When Phoebus sinks behind the seas; 
An' she 's twa glancin' sparkiin' e'en. 

But it 's not her air, hfer form, her face, 
Tl.o' matching beauty's fabled queen. 

But the miiid that shines in cv'ry grace 
And chiefly in her sparkiin' e'en. 



28« 



WAE IS MY HEART. 

Wae is my heart, and the tear 's in my e'e ; 
Lang, lang joy 's been a stranger to me : 
Forsaken and friendless my burden I bear, 
And the sweet Aoice o' pity ne'er sounds in my ear. 

Love thou hast pleasures : and deep hae I loved ; 
Love thou hast sorrows; and sair hae I proved: 
But this bruised heart that now bleeds in my breast, 
I can feel by its throbbings will soon be at rest. 

O if I were, where happy I hae been ; 
Down by yon stream and yon bonie castle green : 
For there he is w^nd'ring and musing on me, 
Wha wad soon dry the tear frae his Phillis's e'e. 



FRAGMENT. 

Her flowing locks, the raven's wing, 
Adoun her neck and bosom hing; 

How sw eet unto that breast to cling, 
And round that neck entwine her I 

Her lips are roses wat wi' dew, 
Os what a feast, her bonie mou! 

Her cheeks a mair celestial hue, 
A crimson still diviner. 



BALLAD. 

To thee, lov'd Nith^ thy gladsome plains, 
Where late wi' careless thought I rang'd, 

Though prest wi' care and sunk in woe, 
To thee 1 bring a heart unchang'd. — 



289 

J love thee Nith, thy banks and braes, 
Tho' mem'ry there my bosom tear; 

For there h-e rov'd that brake my heart. 
Yet to that heart, ah, still how dear ! 



FRAGMENT. 

The winter it is past, and the simtiaer comes at last. 

And the small birds sing on every tree; 
Now every thing is glad while I am very sad, 

Since my true love is parted from me. 

The rose upon the brier by the waters running clear. 

May have charms for the linnet or bee ; 
Their little loves are blest, and their little hearts at 
rest. 

But my true love is parted from me. 



SONG. 

Tune— Banks of Banna 

Yestreen I had a pint o' wine, 

A place where body saw na' ; 
Yestreen lay on this breast o' mine 

The gowden locks of Anna. 
The hungry Jew in wilderness 

Rejoicing o'er his manna. 
Was naething to my hinny bliss 

Upon the lips of Anna. 

Ye monarchs tak the east and west., 
Frae Indus to Savannah ! 

Gie me within my straining grasp 
The melting form of Anna. 

c c 



290 

There I '11 despise imperial charms. 

An Empress or Sultana, 
While dying raptures in her arms 

I give and take with Anna 1 

Awa thou flaunting god o' day ! 

Awa thou pale Diana! 
Ilk star gae hide thy twinkling ray 

When I 'm to meet my Anna. 
Come, in thy raven plumage, night, 

Sun, moon, and stars withdrawn a'; 
And bring an angel pen to write 

My transports wi' my Anna ! 



SONG.* 

The Deil cam fiddling thro' the town. 
And danc'd awa wi' the Exciseman; 

And ilka wife cry'd, " Auld Mahoun, 
" We wish you luck o' the prize man. 

" We 'II mak our maut^ and brew our drink^ 
" We 'II dance and sing and rejoice man; 

<< jind mony thanks to the muckle black Deil^ 
" That danc'd away wV the Exciseman, 

^^ There 's threesome reels, and foursome reelsj 
'' There 's hornpipes and strathspeys, man; 

^' But the ae best dance e'er cam to our Ian', 
" Was— the Deil 's awa wi' the Exciseman. 

" We 'II mak our maut^ life'' 



* At a meeting of his brother Excisemen in Dumfries, Burns 
l)eing called upon for a song, handed these verses extempore 
to the President, written on the back of a letter/ 



291 



SONG. 

Powers celestial, whose protection 
Ever guards the virtuous fair, 

While in distant climes 1 wander, 
Let my Mary be your care : 

Let her form sae fair and faultless. 
Fair and faultless as your own ; 

Let my Mary's kindred spirit, 
\^ Draw your choicest influence down. 

Make the gales you waft around her 

Soft and peaceful as her breast; 
Breathing in the breeze that fans her. 

Sooth her bosom into rest : 
Guardian angels, O protect her. 

When in distant lands I roam ; 
To realms unknown while fate exiles me^ 

Make her bosom still my home.* 



HUNTING SONG. 

/ red you beware at the hunting. 

The heather was blooming, the meadows were mawn 
Our lads gaed a hunting, ae the day at the dawn. 
O'er moors and o'er mosses and mony a glen, 
At length they discovered a bonie moor-hen. 

/ red you beware at the huntings young men-; 
I red you beware at the huntings young men; 
Tak aome on the wlng^ and some as they spring. 
But cannily steal on a bonie moor -hen. 



* Probably written on Hig-hlaiul Mary, on the eve of the 
poet's departure to the West Indies. 



292 

Sweet brushing the dew from the brown heather bells, 
Her colors betray'd hc^' on yon mossy fells; 
Her plumage out-lustred the pride o' the spring, 
And O! as she wantoned gay on the wing. 

AuJd Phoebus hlmsel, as he peepM o'er the hill; 
In spite at her piiimage he trycd his skill; 

He leveU'd his rays where she bask'd on the brae 

His rays where outshone, and but mark'd where she 
lay. 

/ redy Is^c, 

They hunted the valley, they hunted the hill ; 
The best of our lads wi' the best o' their skill ; 
But still as the fairest she sat in their sight, 
Then, whirr ! she was over, a mile at a flight. — 



YOUNG PEGGY. 

Yoimg Peggy blooms our boniest lass* 

Her blush is like the morning, 
The rosy dawn, the springing grass, 

With early gems adorning: 
Her eyes outshine the radiant beams 

That gild the passing shower. 
And glitter o'er the crystal streams, 

And cheer each fresh'ning flower. 

Her lips more than the cherries bright, 

A richer die has grac'd them, 
They charm th' admiring gazer's sight 

And sweetly tempt to taste them : 
Her smile is as the ev'ning mild, 

When feather'd pairs are courting- 
And little lambkins wanton wild. 

In playful bands disporting* 



293 

Were Fortune lovely Peggy's foe, 

Such sweetness would relent her, 
As blooming spring unbends the brow, 

Of surly, savage winter. 
Detraction's eye no aim can gain 

Her winning pow'rs to lessen: 
And fretful envy grins in vain. 

The poison'd tooth to fasten. 

Ye pow'rs of Honor, Love, and Truth, 

From ev'ry ill defend her; 
Inspire the highly £ivor'd youth 

The destinies intend her: 
Still fan the sweet connubial flame 

Responsive in each bosom ; 
And bless the dear parental name 

With many a filial blossom.* 



SONG. 

Tune — The King" of France, he rade a Race, 

Amang the trees where humming bees 

At buds and flowers were hinging, O 
Auld Caledon drew out her drone. 

And to her pipe was singing ; O 
'Twas Pibroch, t sang, strathspey, or reels. 

She dirl'd them aff*, fu' clearly, O 
When there cam a yell o' foreign squcels, 

That dang her tapsalteerie, O — 



* This was one of the poet's earliest compositions. It is co- 
pied from a MS. book, which he had before his first publica- 
tion. 

t Pibroch — A Highland war song-, adapted to the bag-pipe 



294 

Their capon craws and queer ha ha's, 

They made our lugs grow eerie, O 
The hungry bike did scrape and pike 

'Till we were wae and weary; O — 
But a royal ghaist wha ance was cas'd 

A prisoner aughteen year awa, 
He fir'd a fiddler in the North 

That dang them tapsalteerie, O. 



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